Effect of Substrate Wettability and Surface Structure on Nucleation of Crystal

The heterogeneous nucleation behaviors of NH4Cl crystal on rough aluminum substrate surface immerged in NH4Cl-H2O solution were experimentally analyzed, and the influence mechanism of the micro/nano-scale surface structures on heterogeneous nucleation was investigated. It has been shown that wettability and nucleation are affected by substrate surface condition. The intrinsic wetting properties between nucleus and substrate surface, and the surface structure of certain geometrical scales, both impose effects on the heterogeneous nucleation properties. For a nucleus-wetting substrate surface, heterogeneous nucleation is promoted by a higher complexity of the surface morphology; but for a nucleus-nonwetting substrate surface, heterogeneous nucleation is inhibited by a higher complexity of the surface morphology.