Thermal properties, induction period, interfacial energy and nucleation parameters of solution grown benzophenone

Benzophenone is a well-known material, which exhibits non-linear optical (NLO) property. It has been grown by solution technique adopting slow evaporation method from solvents CHCl3, CCl4 for the first time. Solubility metastable zone width and inductions periods of benzophenone in CHCl3 and CCl4 were determined. Interfacial tension values at two different temperatures for various super saturations, such as 1.10, 1.15, 1.20 and 1.25 were determined using induction period. From interfacial tension values, the nucleation parameters, such as the radius of the critical nuclei (r*), the free energy change for the formation of a critical nucleus (Delta G*) and the number of molecules in the critical nucleus were also calculated for benzophenone in CHCl3 and CCl4 at two different temperature. The effect of surface tension, viscosity, density of these solvents are correlated with interfacial tension. The metastable zone width is also correlated with interfacial tension. The solution grown crystals were carefully harvested and subjected to various characterization studies to check its purity and to determine its applicability.