Theoretical Study of the Effect of Decrease of Cluster Sizes on Dilution of a Solution with Water

A theoretical description is presented for the critical effect of decrease of average cluster size in solutions when diluting with water. This effect, found experimentally for C60 solutions in N-methylpyrrolidone, consists in an abrupt decrease in the size of clusters, when the volume fraction of added water is greater than a certain threshold value. This phenomenon is studied in the framework of the previously developed model of confined cluster growth based on kinetic nucleation theory. In this paper, the dilution effect is considered in a general sense and is explained using the power dependence of the saturation concentration of the system.