Ice nucleation in aqueous electrolytes by light scattering observation

Nucleation of ice is studied in supercooled aqueous electrolytes, after quenching, by light scattering experiments. According to salt concentration heterogeneous nucleation can occur on cracks, decorating and locking most of them. In contrast the homogeneous nucleation results are in agreement with Turnbull's theory if the equilibrium temperature for crystallization is identified with the homogeneous nucleation temperature. The mean field scaling law is obtained for the steady state frequency of the ice nucleation per unit volume which gives some estimate for the quantity β^1/3related to the melting of ice and its interface with the solution near 140–145 K. The scaling law is also obtained for the transient nucleation period.