Graduate student Tong Sun wins ACS presentation award

Tong Sun, a doctoral student in Professor Barbara Wyslouzil's group, won an award for her exceptional presentation in the Physical Chemistry and Spectroscopy session at the ACS Great Lakes Regional Meeting 2021, held virtually June 6 - 9.

Sun's presentation, titled "Freezing of aqueous-alcohol nanodroplets in a supersonic nozzle: Effects of chain length and structure," explained how ice freezing from supercooled water droplets is ubiquitous in the atmosphere, and plays an important role in ice cloud formation, precipitation, and climate forcing.

In her presentation, Sun described how the variable chain-lengths/structures of short-chain alcohols make them appealing model solutes for quantifying the influence of such amphiphilic molecules on the freezing temperature and the kinetics of ice nucleation.

"We investigate freezing in aqueous-alcohol nanodroplets (~12 nm) formed in supersonic expansions, by combining pressure trace and FTIR measurements," Sun said. "Our results reveal the delicate interplay of solute size and concentration on ice-nucleation, as well as the surface-partitioning propensities of the alcohols in nanodroplets. These results are enlightening in understanding the role more complex amphiphiles in the environment may have on the freezing process."