Abstract: Some characteristics of the nucleation kinetics can be obtained by measuring the width of metastable zone during the crystallization of aqueous salt solution.According to the theory of crystal growth, the method of calculation of the nucleation characteristic parameters, including the order of nucleation n, the radius of the critical nucleus r^*, the number of particles in a critical nucleus N^* and the specific surface energy σ₁₂ etc from the experimental data is improved in this article.Using an apparatus equipped with a temperature-programmed digital controller and laser detector of the particle appearance, the widths of metastable zone of aqueous K₂SO₄ solution were measured and the nucleation characteristic parameters were calculated.The data obtained are very satisfactory by comparison with the values in the literatures.

Key words: Potassium sulfate, Metastable zone, Nucleation characteristics