Public Research Seminar by Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, HKUST(GZ) - Heterogenous Ice Nucleation and Its Application in Freeze Desalination

Heterogenous ice nucleation (HIN) is referred to as water crystallization on solid surfaces. It is a common phenomenon playing critical roles in diverse areas, including biology, atmospheric science, food industry, and various engineering fields.  In this talk, I will first talk about some of our efforts in understanding the microscopic mechanisms of HIN using molecular dynamics simulations. Factors including surface energy, temperature, and surface structures that affect ice nucleation will be discussed. As an application of HIN, seawater desalination through freezing seawater, which is termed freeze desalination, is introduced. Freeze desalination is an emerging method. It is superior to many traditional desalination methods, such as reverse osmosis and thermal methods, in certain ways (e.g., energy consumption and maintenance). Freeze desalination takes advantage of the phenomenon of ion rejection, i.e., ions tend to be expelled by ice, in HIN of seawater.  The mechanism for ion rejection will be explained and some methods for enhancing the ion rejection rate will be introduced.