Dielectric Behaviour of Ice Microcrystals: A Study Versus Temperature

Abstract Dispersions of ice microcrystals were obtained from the breakdown of super-cooling of water-in-oil type emulsions whose disperse phase was either resin-exchanged water or aqueous solutions of NH 4 C1. Their complex permittivity ϵ * = ϵ ′ - ϵ ″ was studied versus their temperature T , up to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Glaciology
Main Authors: Boned, Christian, Lagourette, Bernard, Clausse, Marc
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1978
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000033840
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000033840
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Summary:Abstract Dispersions of ice microcrystals were obtained from the breakdown of super-cooling of water-in-oil type emulsions whose disperse phase was either resin-exchanged water or aqueous solutions of NH 4 C1. Their complex permittivity ϵ * = ϵ ′ - ϵ ″ was studied versus their temperature T , up to the melting point of the ice microcrystals, by means of an automatically balancing admittance bridge (General Radio 1680A) working at 400 Hz and 1 kHz. The plots ϵ ′ ( T ), ϵ ″ ( T ), and ϵ ″ (ϵ ′ ) reveal that these systems exhibit two distinct dielectric relaxations located on both sides of a temperature T m which was found to be equal to about —20°C in the case of water and lower than —20°C in the case of aqueous solutions of NH 4 C1. The relaxation located in the lower temperature range arises from the Debye dipolar absorption of ice while the other one could be related to structural changes occurring within the lattice of ice as T approaches its melting point. These results are consistent with those obtained by investigating versus frequency the dielectric behaviour of ice microcrystals, at discrete sub-zero temperatures close to their melting point. This paper has been accepted for publication in full in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Glaciology .