High undercooling of bulk water during acoustic levitation

The experiments on undercooling of acoustically levitated water drops with the radius of 5-8 mm are carried out, and the maximum undercooling of 24 K is obtained in such a containerless state. Various factors influencing the undercoolability of water under acoustic levitation are synthetically analyzed. The experimental results indicate that impurities tend to decrease the undercooling level, whereas the dominant factor is the effect of ultrasound. The stirring and cavitation effects of ultrasound tend to stimulate the nucleation of water and prevent further bulk undercooling in experiments. The stirring effect provides some extra energy fluctuation to overcome the thermodynamic barrier for nucleation. The local high pressure caused by cavitation effect increases the local undercooling in water and stimulates nucleation before the achievement of a large bulk undercooling. According to the cooling curves, the dendrite growth velocity of ice is estimated, which is in good agreement with the theoretical prediction at the lower undercooling. The theoretical calculation predicts a dendrite growth velocity of 0.23 m/s corresponding to the maximum undercooling of 24 K, at which the rapid solidification of ice occurs.