Boiling of superheated liquids near the spinodal: II Application

The general theory of boiling near the spinodal as critical phenomenon will be used on the nucleation process of explosive evaporating liquids. In exp eriments with thermal micro heater the occurrence of the critical opalescen ce can be demonstrated which is characteristic for phase transitions of sec ond order. In case of water the experiments permit the determination of the gradient energy coefficient re for nonuniform systems. The homogeneous nuc leation rate for extremely superheated water at normal pressure is discusse d. It is found that the explosive evaporation starts very closed to the spi nodal and leads to spatial extended nuclei in contrast to the conventional nucleation mode.