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

¹ Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology, University of Oslo - P. O. Box 1048 Blindern, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway
² Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University - 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology - SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Oslo - P. O. Box 1048 Blindern, NO-0316 Oslo, Norway
⁶ School of Engineering and IT, Murdoch University - 90 South St, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia

^(a) Mathias.Bostrom@smn.uio.no
^(b) oleksandrmalyi@gmail.com
^(c) thiyam@kth.se

Received: 13 June 2016
Accepted: 22 July 2016

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.