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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Effect of solutes on the heterogeneous nucleation temperature of supercooled water: an experimental determination
1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, CA 92093, USA. pwilson@coast.ucsd.edu
Abstract:
We investigate the effect of solute concentration on the heterogeneous ice nucleation temperature (T(het)) of aqueous solutions of both NaCl and d-glucose. An automatic lag time apparatus (ALTA) technique allows the dependence of T(het) on solute concentration to be determined with statistical significance. Our results point to the solute-induced lowering of T(het) being a factor of two times the equivalent melting point depression at any fixed concentration, the same factor reported for homogeneous nucleation experiments with small molecular weight solutes.
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