Nucleation of freezing

From the theoretical side, there has been little achieved in quantitative predictions of the effect of impurity molecules on crystal nucleation. One exception is the work of Cole and Sluckin who considered the nucleation of freezing in an atomic liquid by a charged particle through the mechanism of electrostriction, in which the pressure is increased in the vicinity of an ion due to induced dipole forces, leading to a reduction of the barrier to nucleation. It is clear that much remains to be done in this field. 

Hickling, R. Nucleation of freezing by cavity collapse and its relation to cavitation damage. Nature, 206, 915, May, 1965. 

In precipitation reactions, powder characteristics depend on the speed of the nucleation of particles and their growth due to the mass flow to the surfaces. In freeze drying and spray drying, powder characteristics primarily depend on the size of droplets, which in turn is determined by the parameters of a nozzle and characteristics of the flow of a carrier gas. Both these methods enable one to obtain powders with very high surface area. 

Talsma et al. [1.34] described the freezing behavior of certain liposomes by DSC measurements. Besides the expected influences of freezing and rewarming speeds, and of the CPAs (mannitol and mannitol in Tris-buffer solutions) it was shown, that the heterogeneous and homogeneous crystallization in mannitol solutions exists and the nucleation of ice depends also on the liposome size In small liposomes (e. g. 0.14 pm) mannitol suppressed the heterogeneous crystallization more effectively than in large (0.87 pm) liposomes. If in certain substances no crystallization or eutectic mixtures can be found by DSC (cephalosporin, Williams [1.35]) with the used experimental conditions, one has to seek different conditions [1.32]. 

These sulfuric acid particles become less concentrated as the temperature decreases or the water vapour increases. Under very cold stratospheric conditions, these liquid aerosols may take up water and HNO, forming ternary solutions H,S0/HN0,/H,0, which eventually freeze [19,24,26], Below 192 K, HNO, becomes the dominant condensed acid, and H,S04 drops to below 3 wt %. The thermodynamics and freezing nucleation of ice and H,S04 or HNO, hydrates from such solutions are however not well understood [27,28]. Other types of solid particles, such as the less stable nitric acid dihydrate (NAD, HN0,.2H,0) [29], sulfriric acid tetrahydrate (SAT, H S04.4H,0) [18,30], sulphuric acid hemihexahydrate (SAH, H2S04.6.5H20) [18], nitric acid penta-hydrate (NAP, HN03.5H,0) [31] and more complex sulfuric acid/nitric acid mixed hydrates [32] may also be a key to understanding Type IPSC nucleation and evolution [28],... 

Once a solid metal or material with simple molecules (e.g., water) has been nucleated, the freezing rate (velocity of the liquid-solid interface) is controlled almost entirely by the rate of heat removal. The temperature of the solid-liquid interface remains very near the equilibrium freezing temperature. Even if there is substantial undercooling before nucleation, the temperature will rise rapidly back to Tm as freezing occurs because the latent heat, Hf, is large and its release will heat the undercooled liquid. 

Nucleation of a new phase in the solid state is more complicated than that of nucleation in freezing. Volume difference between the new and old phases causes an elastic misfit term that increases AG. Destruction of existing grain boundaries reduces AG. An expression for the free energy change during nucleation of 3 in a matrix of a is... 

Abstract A simplified quintuple model for the description of freezing and thawing processes in gas and liquid saturated porous materials is investigated by using a continuum mechanical approach based on the Theory of Porous Media (TPM). The porous solid consists of two phases, namely a granular or structured porous matrix and an ice phase. The liquid phase is divided in bulk water in the macro pores and gel water in the micro pores. In contrast to the bulk water the gel water is substantially affected by the surface of the solid. This phenomenon is already apparent by the fact that this water is frozen by homogeneous nucleation. 

This happened because of our investigation of the rate of nucleation of ice in deeply supercooled water. Previous laboratory studies of the freezing of water occurred in substantially warmer water and were blind to the phase of ice obtained. We studied water undergoing nucleation at roughly the temperature of nucleation in cirrus clouds, I believe. I understand that what happens in cirrus clouds has an important effect on the climate. Moreover, we showed directly that the ice first nucleated was the metastable cubic ice, not the ordinary hexagonal ice. Atmospheric scientists had inferred that result from indirect evidence. Previously it had not been possible to carry out experiments like ours in the laboratory, which is why our work attracted the attention of atmospheric scientists. 

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