Electrocrystallization of Supercooled Water Confined by Graphene Walls

TL;DR

This study investigates how an external electric field influences the crystallization process of supercooled water confined between graphene walls, revealing conditions that promote rapid formation of cubic ice.

Contribution

It provides new insights into electric field-induced crystallization of supercooled water within graphene confinement, including specific conditions that facilitate cubic ice formation.

Findings

Crystallization occurs at 268 K with a 0.5 V/Å electric field.

Crystalline cubic ice forms with few defects within ~5 ns.

Electric field significantly accelerates water crystallization.

Abstract

Any structural transformation of water is sensitive to an external electric field, since water molecules have dipole moments. We study influence of external uniform electric field on crystallization of supercooled water enclosed between two graphene planes. Crystallization of such the system is caused by ordinary relaxation of the metastable phase into an ordered (crystalline) phase and by dipole alignment induced by an applied electric field. We found that this system at the temperature $T=268$ K, where water has the density $0.94$ g/cm$^3$ and the applied electric field is of the magnitude $E=0.5~\textrm{V}$/Angstrom, crystallizes into the cubic ice with few the defects, and the crystallization proceeds over the time scale $\sim 5.0$ ns. The obtained results can be directly used to develop the methods to drive by water crystallization.