Investigation of primary nucleation phenomena of acetylsalicylic acid crystals induced by ultrasonic irradiation-ultrasonic energy needed to activate primary nucleation

The purpose of our study is to clarify ultrasonic primary nucleation phenomena for controlling final product size by adjusting the number of primary nuclei. In our previous study, the effect of ultrasonic irradiation on the number of nuclei was investigated under the same supersaturated condition, as a result two novel phenomena were observed. First, there is a region where ultrasonic irradiation inhibits primary nucleation. Second, a specific amount of energy is needed to activate primary nucleation. From this result, it was expected that the ultrasonic energy needed to activate primary nucleation has a certain relationship to the energy necessary to form a stable nucleus. Therefore, we investigated the following: whether ultrasonic irradiation inhibits and activates primary nucleation at various degrees of supersaturation, whether final crystal size relates to the number of nuclei, and whether the ultrasonic energy needed to activate primary nucleation relates to the energy necessary to form a stable nucleus. First, we found that ultrasonic irradiation inhibits and activates primary nucleation at various supersaturated degrees. Second, we found that final crystal size increases or decreases depending on the number of nuclei. Therefore, it was indicated that ultrasonic energy could yield the desired crystal size by inducing suitable nucleation. Third, we found that the ultrasonic energy needed to activate primary nucleation decreases with a decrease in the energy necessary to form a stable nucleus. From this, we can propose criteria for determining the effect of ultrasonic irradiation on primary nucleation by showing diagrams correlating ΔG_crit with E_crit.