Nanocarbon condensation in detonation

We analyze the definition of the Gibbs free energy of a nanoparticle in a reactive fluid environment, and propose an approach for predicting the size of carbon nanoparticles produced by the detonation of carbon-rich explosives that regards their condensation as a nucleation process and takes into account absolute entropy effects of the cluster population. The results are consistent with experimental observations and indicate that such entropy considerations are important for determining chemical equilibrium states in energetic materials that contain an excess of carbon. The analysis may be useful for other applications that deal with the nucleation of nanoparticles under reactive conditions.