2020/08/31 by Alexei V. Finkelstein, Finkelstein, Alexei V.
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2008.13682
openalex publication_date 2020/08/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
I consider the kinetics of water freezing and show that, at small sub-zero temperatures, (i) the time of ice nucleation within the bulk water environment is enormous and therefore cannot take place either in lakes of in living cells; (ii) that the ice nucleation needs some ice-binding surfaces to occur, but (iii) even this kind of ice nucleation can take place, as a rule, only at the temperatures that are a few degrees below 0oC. Further, I discuss factors that can drastically reduce the ice nucleation time at nearly-zero temperatures both in open reservoirs, where water contacts with air, and in cells, where there is no such contact.