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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

Ice Generation and the Heat and Mass Transfer Phenomena of Introducing Water to a Cold Bath of Brine
Published on: March 13, 2017
Rates of homogeneous ice nucleation in levitated H2O and D2O droplets
Peter Stöckel1, Inez M Weidinger, Helmut Baumgärtel
1Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Binger Str. 173, 55216 Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany. peter.stockel@web.de
Abstract:
Rates of homogeneous nucleation of H2O droplets in a temperature range from 236.37 to 237.91 K and of D2O droplets from 241.34 to 242.33 K were measured. The single microdroplets consisted of pure H2O or D2O and were levitated in an electrodynamic balance. In comparison to H2O, D2O shows a stronger tendency to nucleate. Over the investigated temperature interval, D2O droplets need to be supercooled less by 1.1 K compared to H2O droplets in order to arrive at the same nucleation rate. This is in good agreement with the higher degree of intermolecular association in liquid D2O, a fact which has been well established previously both from theory and experimental studies.
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