LIFETIME OF A HIGHLY SOLUBLE DENSE SPHERICAL PARTICLE

The lifetime of an isolated spherical solute particle in a solvent is expressed in closed form, simultaneously incorporating the major effects of (i) limitations to solute escape by molecular diffusion, (ii) nonzero interfacial velocities for highly soluble solute-solvent systems, and (iii) kinetic limitations to atom (-ion-molecule) detachment at the solute-solvent interface. Illustrative calculations are displayed in compact form and well-known results are recovered in the extremes of sparing solubility, infinite interfacial rate constant, or interface kinetics-controlled dissolution. Assumptions and approximations underlying the general phenomenological expression (and each of its more familiar limiting forms) are reviewed and criteria governing its domain of validity are indicated.