Studies on thermal diffusion and Dufour effect in condensation of a trace gas and a near-pure vapor: water droplets on Earth and CO2 ice crystals on Mars

The growth or evaporation of droplets or crystals in a gas mixture is controlled by the balance of mass and heat transfer. The nature of the condensing vapor and above all its relative abundance in the atmosphere plays a major role in the mass transfer processes. We investigate the influence of molecular diffusion, thermal diffusion or Soret effect (mass transfer), and Dufour effect (heat transfer), with previous work done by Kulmala and Vesala (1991) as a starting point (hereafter KV91) and extending it to the case of high relative abundances of the condensing vapor.