Nucleation of Chemically Active Droplets

Driven chemical reactions can control the macroscopic properties of droplets, like their size. Such active droplets are critical in structuring the interior of biological cells. Cells also need to control where and when droplets appear, so they need to control droplet nucleation. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that reactions generally suppress nucleation if they stabilize the homogeneous state. An equilibrium surrogate model reveals that reactions increase the effective energy barrier of nucleation, enabling quantitative predictions of the increased nucleation times. Moreover, the surrogate model allows us to construct a phase diagram, which summarizes how reactions affect the stability of the homogeneous phase and the droplet state. This simple picture provides accurate predictions of how driven reactions delay nucleation, which is relevant for understanding droplets in biological cells and chemical engineering.

Automated summary

Driven chemical reactions can control the macroscopic properties of droplets, like their size, which is critical for structuring the interior of biological cells. Numerical simulations and an equilibrium surrogate model show that reactions suppress droplet nucleation by increasing the energy barrier. The model also allows the construction of a phase diagram, providing accurate predictions of how driven reactions delay nucleation, which is relevant for understanding droplets in biological cells and chemical engineering.