A new, self-consistent formulation of the homogeneous nucleation theory has been proposed. This approach differs from the classical Becker-Döring-Zel'dovich theory in two respects: i) evaporation rates are evaluated by referring to the stable equilibrium of a saturated vapour rather than to the constrained metastable equilibrium of a supersaturated vapour; ii) for the reference stable equilibrium state the Fisher theory of condensation is used in order to obtain a self-consistent definition of the energy barrier for l -cluster formation. The present theory has no adjustable parameters. A comparison of the new expressions for the nucleation rate and critical cluster size with the corresponding classical expressions has been made for the different parts of the phase diagram (temperature-supersaturation) and the domain where both theories are close has been found. It has been shown that the present theory has much better agreement with experimental results for n -nonane than the classical one.
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Kalikmanov et al. (1993) studied this question.