A study of the occurrence of supercooling of water

Kah Chye Tan; Wenxian Ho; J. I. Katz; Shi Jiang Feng

doi:10.1119/1.4939792

A study of the occurrence of supercooling of water

Kah Chye Tan
, Wenxian Ho
, J. I. Katz
, Shi Jiang Feng

Department of Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Supercooling of water can be easily studied with a simple apparatus suitable for the student laboratory. We describe such an apparatus and its capabilities. The parameters influencing supercooling include the initial water temperature, as well as the type and temperature of the chilling medium. We correlate the occurrence of supercooling with the ability of the chilling medium to promptly nucleate ice; if it nucleates promptly, the layer of ice crystals formed on the boundary will initiate freezing of the bulk water without supercooling. If the chilling medium is unable to nucleate ice promptly, ice nucleation is delayed and the water supercools. Students can study and compare supercooling of distilled and natural water. Even quite dirty river water may be supercooled by as much as 5 ° C.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	293-300
Number of pages	8
Journal	American Journal of Physics
Volume	84
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4939792
State	Published - Apr 1 2016

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title = "A study of the occurrence of supercooling of water",

abstract = "Supercooling of water can be easily studied with a simple apparatus suitable for the student laboratory. We describe such an apparatus and its capabilities. The parameters influencing supercooling include the initial water temperature, as well as the type and temperature of the chilling medium. We correlate the occurrence of supercooling with the ability of the chilling medium to promptly nucleate ice; if it nucleates promptly, the layer of ice crystals formed on the boundary will initiate freezing of the bulk water without supercooling. If the chilling medium is unable to nucleate ice promptly, ice nucleation is delayed and the water supercools. Students can study and compare supercooling of distilled and natural water. Even quite dirty river water may be supercooled by as much as 5 ° C.",

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AB - Supercooling of water can be easily studied with a simple apparatus suitable for the student laboratory. We describe such an apparatus and its capabilities. The parameters influencing supercooling include the initial water temperature, as well as the type and temperature of the chilling medium. We correlate the occurrence of supercooling with the ability of the chilling medium to promptly nucleate ice; if it nucleates promptly, the layer of ice crystals formed on the boundary will initiate freezing of the bulk water without supercooling. If the chilling medium is unable to nucleate ice promptly, ice nucleation is delayed and the water supercools. Students can study and compare supercooling of distilled and natural water. Even quite dirty river water may be supercooled by as much as 5 ° C.

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A study of the occurrence of supercooling of water

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