Immersion Freezing of Clay Minerals and its Time Dependence

Immersion ice nucleation efficiency of clay minerals has been investigated using the AIDA (Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere) cloud chamber. Various clay dust samples, including two illite as well as three kaolinite standards, have been examined in the temperature range between 238 K and 255 K. We observed two trends in immersion ice nucleation properties as cloud expansion conditions in the AIDA are varied. First, as previously described in the literature, the supersaturation required for the immersion freezing of clay minerals decreased with decreasing temperature and increasing inferred ice-active surface site densities. Second, the ice nucleation activity of clay minerals strongly depended on the solo-parameter, which is the rate change in temperature (i.e., dN_ice/dT = ∂N_ice/∂t ÷ ∂T/∂t). Further time dependence of ice formation is investigated and discussed as a function of cooling rates, ice nuclei (IN), and aerosol concentrations. Ice residuals collected through a pumped counterflow virtual impactor are examined by electron microprobe analyses to seek the true chemical and physical identity of IN in clay minerals. Brief comparisons of AIDA measurement to the measurements with other ice nucleation chambers (e.g., ETH-PINC, FINCH, and commercially available DMT-SPIN) are also presented.