The influence of Lifshitz forces and gas on premelting of ice within porous materials

Abstract

-Premelting of ice within pores in earth materials is shown to depend on the presence of vapor layers. For thick vapor layers between ice and pore surfaces, a nanosized water sheet can be formed due to repulsive Lifshitz forces. In the absence of vapor layers, ice is inhibited from melting near pore surfaces. In between these limits, we find an enhancement of the water film thickness in silica and alumina pores. In the presence of metallic surface patches in the pore, the Lifshitz forces can dramatically widen the water film thickness, with potential complete melting of the ice surface.At the interface between ice and a dissimilar material, interfacial melting can occur. In some cases this melting can become unbounded resulting in complete interfacial melting of ice. This case is here referred to as premelting in the case of the vapor-ice interface. [1, 2] In porous media, premelting of ice is here shown to depend on the presence of diluted gas layers between ice and pore surface as well as on the optical properties of the surface material. This ought to be important to account for in any realistic modeling that aims at understanding how liquid water can be present in frozen pores on icy planets and in permafrost regions. Different surface materials including silica (serving as model for rock composed of quartz), alumina, and gold are studied. We show how enhanced concentrations of liquid water can be induced in pores depending on the nature of the surface materials and the thickness of the vapor layers. Our model system is shown in Fig.

Lifshitz interaction can promote ice growth at water-silica interfaces

“…[31], Dash et al thoroughly reviewed a related phenomenon of the premelting of ice, which was also considered by some of us in Ref. [32] where we showed that it is essential to have a vapor layer between ice and a silica surface to have premelting of the ice. )…”

“…In real systems, optical properties, surface charges, surface roughness [3], the density of the material, gravity [28,52], ions [40,53,54], the presence of gas layers on ice premelting in pores [32] and so on influence the total energy of the system. It is an advantage of the theory that different properties can be analyzed separately.…”

Premelting of ice adsorbed on a rock surface

“…[10] In a similar way, the premelting water layer thickness for ice in cavities can be enhanced by the presence of a gas layer between ice and the pore surface. [11] Additional effects can potentially arise from ion-specific hydration and ion-specific dispersion forces between ions and interfaces, [12,13,14,15,16].…”

Fluid-sensitive nanoscale switching with quantum levitation controlled by α -Sn/ β -Sn phase transition

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