Kinetics and thermodynamics of sucrose crystal growth in the presence of a non-ionic surfactant

Batch experiments were carried out to study the effect of Hodag CB6, a non-ionic surfactant, on the growth kinetics of sucrose crystals as a function of supersaturation, impurity concentration and temperature. The growth promoting effect of the added impurity, studied using a recently introduced spiral nucleation model (SNM), was due to the decrease in the surface free energy induced by the added surfactant. The growth process was influenced by both kinetic and thermodynamic effect, the latter being predominant. The coverage of impurity molecules on the sucrose surface followed a Henry type expression according to Langmuir isotherm at studied temperatures. In the case of a pure system, the total active kink density was found to be around 1016 kinks/m2. The active growth sites on the crystal surface were found to be two orders of magnitude lower than the total number of sucrose molecules.