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Updated: Aug 27, 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
14.0K
Effect of diffusion kinetics on the ice nucleation temperature distribution
Lorenzo Stratta1, Andrea Arsiccio1, Roberto Pisano2
1Molecular Engineering Laboratory (molE), Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, 24 corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 10129, Turin, Italy.
Scientific Reports
|September 29, 2022
Summary
Water
Area of Science:
- Water nucleation is critical across diverse scientific fields, including meteorology, glaciology, biology, and astrophysics.
Background:
- Heterogeneous nucleation of ice in water is a fundamental process with broad implications.
- Understanding the factors influencing ice nucleation is essential for various scientific disciplines.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of diffusion kinetics on heterogeneous ice nucleation in water.
- To explore how variables like thawing temperature and residence time affect nucleation regularity.
Main Methods:
- Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed for freeze/thaw cycle analysis.
- The study systematically varied thawing temperature and residence time above 0°C.
Main Results:
- Thawing temperature and residence time significantly impact the width of ice nucleation temperature distributions.
- Enhanced nucleator diffusion led to broader, more scattered distributions.
- Limited nucleator diffusion resulted in narrower, more regular distributions.
Conclusions:
- Diffusion kinetics of external nucleators play a key role in heterogeneous ice nucleation.
- A theoretical framework is proposed, linking diffusion kinetics' temperature dependence to nucleation behavior.
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