Experimental investigation of the homogeneous freezing of aqueous ammonium sulfate droplets. 2006

Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Box 351310, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.

We have measured the light scattering intensity and homogeneous ice nucleation temperatures from water droplets containing 0-33 wt % ammonium sulfate. In these laboratory experiments, we used a free-fall freezing tube technique to determine the fraction of frozen droplets at a particular droplet temperature by measuring the depolarized light scattering intensity from the droplets in free-fall. Previously reported freezing temperatures for solution concentrations greater than 5 wt % display a larger spread than can be accounted for by the reported experimental errors. We find freezing temperatures in good agreement with the lowest temperature freezing results reported by previous experiments. Our ammonium sulfate freezing temperature data set with water activity less than 0.98 is consistent with a curve that deviates in activity shift by about 5% from the best-fit ice nucleation temperature versus water activity curve found by Koop et al. in 2000, but the significance of this deviation will only be known with further high-precision ice nucleation temperature measurements for other aqueous solutions.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries

Related Publications

Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
January 2013, Environmental science & technology,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
November 2022, Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
February 2021, Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
July 1973, Applied optics,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
December 2016, The Journal of chemical physics,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
November 1949, Nature,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
November 2001, Fresenius' journal of analytical chemistry,
Ben H Larson, and Brian D Swanson
September 2021, Environmental science & technology,
Copied contents to your clipboard!