Session: Molecular Processes at Mineral-Water Interfaces:

Heterogeneous ice nucleation (HIN) has various applications in the field of atmospheric science, food preservation, microbiology, and nanotechnology. Muscovite mica is one of the most abundant minerals in the atmosphere and its HIN efficiency has been widely debated. Various experimental and simulation studies have attempted to correlate the arrangement of water molecules on the mica surface to its ice-nucleating capability, but no clear picture has yet emerged. We present a large-scale molecular dynamics simulation study of HIN on the mica (001) surface. We show that in the absence of ions a high-energy plane of ice can attach to the mica surface, resulting in spontaneous freezing at moderate supercooling. This differs from ice-nucleating mechanisms that have been observed for other surfaces, which occur via the basal or prism face of ice. A protonated mica surface is found to nucleate ice by the same mechanism. The connection between the surface morphology of mica and the ice nucleation mechanism is discussed in detail. The simulation analysis is compared with recent experimental results.

Mr. Abhishek Soni

Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Appearances