Now if we can just apply this treatment to all the glaciers and the Arctic…
Artificially controlling water condensation leads to ‘room-temperature ice’
Via Eurekalert. College Park, MD (July 27, 2010) — Earth’s climate is strongly influenced by the presence of particles of different shapes and origins — in the form of dust, ice and pollutants — that find their way into the lowest portion of the atmosphere, the troposphere. There, water adsorbed on the surface of these particles can freeze at higher temperatures than pure water droplets, triggering rain and snow.
Researchers at Spain’s Centre d’Investigació en Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (CIN2) have studied the underlying mechanisms of water condensation in the troposphere and found a way to make artificial materials to control water condensation and trigger ice formation at room temperature. Described in the Journal of Chemical Physics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics, their work may lead to new additives for snowmaking, improved freezer systems, or new coatings that help grow ice for skating rinks.
“Several decades ago, scientists predicted that materials with crystal faces exhibiting a structure similar to that of hexagonal ice, the form of all natural snow and ice on Earth, would be an ideal agent to induce freezing and trigger rain,” explains Dr. Albert Verdaguer. “This explanation has since proven to be insufficient.”
The research team chose to study barium fluoride (BaF2), a naturally occurring mineral, also known as “Frankdicksonite,” as an option. They examined water adsorption on BaF2 (111) surfaces under ambient conditions using different scanning force microscopy modes and optical microscopy to zoom in on the role atomic steps play in the structure of water films, which can affect the stabilization of water bilayers and, ultimately, condensation.
Despite having the desired hexagonal structure, BaF2 turned out to be a poor ice-nucleating material. But oddly enough, other researchers had discovered that when the mineral’s surface has defects, its condensation efficiency is enhanced.
Verdaguer and his colleagues figured out why this occurs. “Under ambient conditions — room temperature and different humidities — we observed that water condensation is mainly induced by the formation of two-dimensional ice-like patches at surface defects,” Verdaguer says. “Based on our results and previous research, we’re preparing artificial materials to improve water condensation in a controllable way.”
The next step? The researchers’ goal now is to produce environmentally-friendly synthetic materials for efficiently inducing snow. “If water condenses in an ordered way, such as a hexagonal structure, on such surfaces at ambient conditions, the term ‘room temperature ice’ would be fully justified,” adds Verdaguer. “The solid phase, ice, would be produced by a surface effect rather than as a consequence of temperature. In the long term, we intend to prepare smart materials, ‘intelligent surfaces,’ that will react to water in a predefined way.”
The article, “Two-dimensional wetting: The role of atomic steps on the nucleation of thin water films on BaF2(111) at ambient conditions” by M. Cardellach, A. Verdaguer, J. Santiso, and J. Fraxedas was published online in the Journal of Chemical Physics on June 21, 2010.
PDF of the paper is available. See: http://link.aip.org/link/JCPSA6/v132/i23/p234708/s1
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Somehow, I doubt if this will get around the laws of thermodynamics.
Sounds like Ice-9.
Ice nine.
Didn’t we get enough real snow last winter?
It would be better if they could get it to condense to a liquid and flow away from their specially engineered materials. Then you could mine water from the air to water your crops.
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who immediately thought of ice nine. Turns out to be even more apropos than I’d thought….
According to wikipedia (don’t groan, its not that bad a source for non-controversial topics), Vonnegut was inspired by an idea thought up by a thin-film researcher who had been tasked with entertaining HG Wells on a visit to GE. Wells wasn’t interested, but Vonnegut ran with it in his own inimitable style when he learned of it decades later. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-nine)
Ice nine was a REAL global catastrophe. These ‘scientists’ must be stopped!
Didn’t these guys see “The Day After Tomorrow”?
What could go wrong?
(I’m thinking a leaking truck on a high-speed highway. Oops! )
Talking of Ice Nine. The company I worked for in the seventies had a run in with a real live “ice nine”
We manufactured a chemical that was liquid at room temperature. Somehow we ended up making a crystalline form. The crystals from our plant “seeded” the chemical and from then on the chemical was solid at room temperature. This did not endear us to our customers or the other manufacturers of the chemical. (Yes the company is still in business making custom chemicals)
“If water condenses in an ordered way, such as a hexagonal structure, on such surfaces at ambient conditions, the term ‘room temperature ice’ would be fully justified,”
not rotten, just ‘semantic’
it’s still just condensed water in monomolecular thickness.
If we could control it we can save the polar bears!
Since we are playing with the evaporation system and our politicians are nuttier than fruitcakes….how long will some moron will try to seed this in the atmosphere to “cool” the planet?
Hmm. Sounds to me a good way to desalinate water.
The easy way to get fresh water from sea water is to have an inclined plastic sheet over salt water and gather the condensation seeping down at the bottom of the sheet. Not very efficient but good to know if stranded on an island without fresh water 🙂 .
Now if the plastic had this magic surface, then it would be much more efficient and maybe large quantities of water could be obtained?
Molon Labe says:
July 28, 2010 at 1:13 am
It would be better if they could get it to condense to a liquid and flow away from their specially engineered materials. Then you could mine water from the air to water your crops.
I think it would melt if exposed to sunlight heating, as with the plastic sheet I mentioned above, if the post ever appears.
I tried pointing this out last year in the CO2 freezing point article. Ice nucleates around defects. No one seemed interested at the time.
An enhanced ski season. Why they could be skiing in CA in July. Oh, sorry, they were doing that with the natural stuff.
Perhaps these researchers could learn a lesson from biology, specifically microbiology. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, researchers found that several plant pathogens produced a protein that nucleated ice formation. Steve Lindow did extensive work on this, showing that the protein stimulated the crystallization of ice in super-cooled water at temperatures -2 to -5 C. The rapid ice formation would then disrupt the plant leaves and allow the bacteria access to all of the nutrients within the plant’s cells.
IIRC, there was a pretty big environmental kerfuffle surrounding the release of a genetically modified Pseudomonas syringae without the “ice” gene. The first field experiments were delayed several years because of fears (I can’t recall the particular deadly scenario(s)) that the release would cause irreparable environmental damage. The basic thought was to apply “ice-less” bacteria to strawberry plants, hoping to outcompete the resident bacteria. I remember that there were promising results but I never followed up on it.
This research did result in a commercial application: artificial snow making. I don’t know how extensively it is used today, but the reference to the protein sequence is:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/P06620.1
“Frankdicksonite”? I’ll bet Frank is still having a good laugh over that one!
“Two-dimensional wetting technique” – I thought this was what happened to Gavin et al whenever anyone said the words “Global Cooling.”
If ice is forming at a higher temperature, where is the energy going? is it cold ice or room temperature ice? For ice to form, the condensate must release its energy to the surrounding, releasing heat. if however the room is warmer than the ice, the ice will absorb energy from the room and cool the room.
What am I missing here?
Here is a simple request out of compassion – can we just makes boots with a BaF2 sole for the polar bears so they will always be walking around on “ice”. When properly fitted, perhaps they won’t drown anymore, they will simply walk across the water. That swimming thing wears them out you know.
Hmmm. Only peripherally related but maybe of interest: I recall a recent TV program (I believe ‘Engineering an Empire’ on Discovery) about a mythical tale out of India that the royal guests centuries ago would have ice treats at the end of meals by placing bowls of water outside even in sweltering heat. Turned out to be true and was demonstrated. The small bowls were placed in a breezeway with straw covering the top. The controlled evaporation removed heat and a thin film of ice formed in something around 45 mins, iirc.
Cheers,
BillN
“Based on our results and previous research, we’re preparing artificial materials to improve water condensation in a controllable way.”
The above statement lacks the ethical question: Should we be doing this?
And the law of unintended consequences will arrive when such things are done at scale.
Thad Allen “Where’s the oil?”
“Scotty, Beam Me Up! The natives are thinking!”
Yikes!!! This Global Warming thingy has progressed to the point that even ice is at room temperature! Iced tea will never be as thirst quenching again…..