The effect of stirring on the heterogeneous nucleation of water and of clathrates of tetrahydrofuran/water mixtures

TL;DR

This study investigates how stirring influences the nucleation temperature of water and tetrahydrofuran/water mixtures, finding that stirring does not affect nucleation temperature in their experimental setup.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental measurements of nucleation temperatures and evaluates the effect of stirring, which was found to have no impact on nucleation temperature.

Findings

Stirring does not change nucleation temperature.

Nucleation temperatures measured for water and THF/water mixtures.

Numerical evaluation supports experimental results.

Abstract

The statistics of liquid-to-crystal nucleation are measured for both water and for clathrate-forming mixtures of tetrahydrofuran (THF) and water using an automatic lag time apparatus (ALTA). We measure the nucleation temperature using this apparatus in which a single sample is repeatedly cooled, nucleated and thawed. The effect of stirring on nucleation has been evaluated numerically and is discussed. We find that stirring of the solution makes no difference to the nucleation temperature of a given solution in a given tube.