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Updated: Sep 23, 2025
08:16
Ice Generation and the Heat and Mass Transfer Phenomena of Introducing Water to a Cold Bath of Brine
Published on: March 13, 2017
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A sudden-melting event during water freezing inside a copper well
1Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR People's Republic of China newpo016@hotmail.com.
RSC Advances
|May 13, 2022
Summary
Researchers discovered a novel "sudden-melting event" during water freezing. Dissolved air causes ice to melt from the bottom, significantly reducing ice adhesion to surfaces for potential anti-icing applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Fluid Dynamics
- Surface Chemistry
Background:
- Understanding ice formation and adhesion is crucial for various applications.
- Current anti-icing methods often rely on complex micro-textures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the freezing process of super-cooled water in millimeter-sized wells.
- To identify novel phenomena during freezing and their implications for ice adhesion.
Main Methods:
- Confocal microscopy was used to observe the freezing of super-cooled water.
- Experiments were conducted in millimeter-sized copper wells.
Main Results:
- A 'sudden-melting event' was observed where ice melts at the substrate interface during cooling.
- A gap forms between the ice and substrate, reducing adhesion by over 50%.
- Dissolved air, excluded during freezing, forms channels that transport meltwater to the substrate, causing the melting.
Conclusions:
- The 'sudden-melting event' offers a new mechanism for reducing ice adhesion.
- This phenomenon provides a basis for a simpler, more robust anti-icing strategy compared to super-hydrophobic surfaces.
- The approach utilizes millimeter-sized wells, making it cost-effective and scalable.
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