Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Nonthermal ice nucleation observed at distorted contact lines of supercooled water drops

Journal Article · · Physical Review E
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4]
  1. Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Sciences Program; Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  2. Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States). Dept. of Physics
  3. Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States). Dept. of Biomedical Engineering
  4. Michigan Technological Univ., Houghton, MI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Sciences Program
+ Show Author Affiliations

Ice nucleation is the crucial step for ice formation in atmospheric clouds and therefore underlies climatologically relevant precipitation and radiative properties. Some progress has been made in understanding the roles of temperature, supersaturation, and material properties, but an explanation for the efficient ice nucleation occurring when a particle contacts a supercooled water drop has been elusive for over half a century. Here, we explore ice nucleation initiated at constant temperature and observe that mechanical agitation induces freezing of supercooled water drops at distorted contact lines. Results show that symmetric motion of supercooled water on a vertically oscillating substrate does not freeze, no matter how we agitate it. However, when the moving contact line is distorted with the help of trace amounts of oil or inhomogeneous pinning on the substrate, freezing can occur at temperatures much higher than in a static droplet, equivalent to ~1010 increase in nucleation rate. Several possible mechanisms are proposed to explain the observations. One plausible explanation among them, decreased pressure due to interface curvature, is explored theoretically and compared with the observational results quasiquantitatively. Indeed, the observed freezing-temperature increase scales with contact line speed in a manner consistent with the pressure hypothesis. Whatever the mechanism, the experiments demonstrate a strong preference for ice nucleation at three-phase contact lines compared to the two-phase interface, and they also show that movement and distortion of the contact line are necessary contributions to stimulating the nucleation process.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (SC-23); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704; SC0011690
OSTI ID:
1424988
Report Number(s):
BNL-203309-2018-JAAM
Journal Information:
Physical Review E, Journal Name: Physical Review E Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 97; ISSN PLEEE8; ISSN 2470-0045
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (50)

Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena: Drops, Bubbles, Pearls, Waves book January 2004
Novel methods for rapid freezing and thawing of foods – a review journal September 2002
Effect of oscillatory shear on the fluid–solid phase transition of supercooled water journal September 1998
Estimation of ice–water interfacial energy based on pressure-dependent formulation of classical nucleation theory journal September 2013
Escaping the no man's land: Recent experiments on metastable liquid water journal January 2015
Physics and Chemistry of Clouds book January 2011
Role of Organic Hydrocarbons in Atmospheric Ice Formation via Contact Freezing journal December 2016
Contact Freezing of Water by Salts journal August 2015
Crystal Nucleation by Laser-Induced Cavitation journal June 2011
Heterogeneous Surface Crystallization Observed in Undercooled Water journal May 2005
High-Speed Imaging of Freezing Drops: Still No Preference for the Contact Line journal March 2013
Thermodynamics of Heterogeneous Crystal Nucleation in Contact and Immersion Modes journal November 2008
Fast Imaging of Freezing Drops: No Preference for Nucleation at the Contact Line journal May 2011
Multimodel assessment of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere: Tropics and global trends journal January 2010
Nucleation of Freezing by Cavity Collapse and its Relation to Cavitation Damage journal May 1965
Nucleation of the Solid Phase by Cavitation in an Undercooled Liquid which expands on Freezing journal September 1966
Life in extreme environments journal February 2001
Design of anti-icing surfaces: smooth, textured or slippery? journal January 2016
Structural transformation in supercooled water controls the crystallization rate of ice journal November 2011
Ice nucleation at the nanoscale probes no man’s land of water journal May 2013
Direct observation of ice nucleation events on individual atmospheric particles journal January 2016
Phase behavior of capillary bridges: towards nanoscale water phase diagram journal January 2008
A water activity based model of heterogeneous ice nucleation kinetics for freezing of water and aqueous solution droplets journal January 2013
Low-density liquid water is the mother of ice: on the relation between mesostructure, thermodynamics and ice crystallization in solutions journal January 2013
Nucleation of Solid in an Undercooled Liquid by Cavitation journal January 1966
Ice nucleation at the contact line triggered by transient electrowetting fields journal December 2015
Contact efflorescence as a pathway for crystallization of atmospherically relevant particles journal December 2015
Evaporation-triggered microdroplet nucleation and the four life phases of an evaporating Ouzo drop journal July 2016
Cavitation onset caused by acceleration journal July 2017
Transient effects in ice nucleation of a water drop impacting onto a cold substrate journal February 2017
Nucleation at the Contact Line Observed on Nanotextured Surfaces journal December 2014
Interfacial Free Energy as the Key to the Pressure-Induced Deceleration of Ice Nucleation journal September 2016
Triplon Modes of Puddles journal April 2005
Heterogeneous Nucleation in and out of Pores journal August 2006
Surface nanobubbles and nanodroplets journal August 2015
Crystal nucleation initiated by transient ion-surface interactions at aerosol interfaces journal July 2017
Supercooling of Water to -92 C Under Pressure journal September 1975
Cloud Microphysics and Climate journal May 1997
Active sites in heterogeneous ice nucleation—the example of K-rich feldspars journal December 2016
Vibrated sessile drops: Transition between pinned and mobile contact line oscillations journal August 2004
Freezing of Supercooled Water Droplets due to Collision journal December 1969
A Possible Mechanism for Contact Nucleation journal October 1974
A Study of the Mechanism of Contact Ice Nucleation journal August 1975
Entropic Aspects of Supercooled Droplet Freezing journal September 2008
A Classical-Theory-Based Parameterization of Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation by Mineral Dust, Soot, and Biological Particles in a Global Climate Model journal August 2010
Production of Ice in Tropospheric Clouds: A Review journal June 2005
The non-classical nucleation of crystals: microscopic mechanisms and applications to molecular crystals, ice and calcium carbonate journal November 2012
The Freezing of Supercooled Water journal November 1948
Heterogeneous ice nucleation on atmospheric aerosols: a review of results from laboratory experiments journal January 2012
Contact freezing: a review of experimental studies journal January 2013

Cited By (3)

Temperature-gradient effects on heterogeneous ice nucleation from supercooled water journal December 2019
Rapid freezing of water under dynamic compression journal May 2018
Is Contact Nucleation Caused by Pressure Perturbation? journal December 2019

Similar Records

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES