Ice active nucleation cites successfully identified on K-Feldspar

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:21:42 +0100
RSS-News, Teaser

Scientists of IMK-AAF, in cooperation with researchers of the KIT Laboratory of Electron Microscopy (LEM) and University College London (UCL) have succeeded in identifying the unique features on K-Feldspar responsible for its high ice nucleation efficiency. As reported in Science magazine (DOI: 10.1126/science.aai8034), they combined electron microscopy observations with molecular modeling to determine for the first time the atomic nature of this important inorganic ice nucleating particle. They showed that ice starts to grow on the specific crystal faces with (100) orientation that only occur at defects (steps, cracks, and crevices) on the surface of feldspar particles.