A Study of Water Supercooling

The objective of this paper is to investigate water supercooling. Supercooling occurs when a liquid does not freeze although its temperature is below its freezing point. In general, supercooling is an unstable condition and occurs under special conditions. The parameters that influence supercooling stability and probability of occurrence include freezer temperature and water’s initial temperature. In this paper, it is shown that with a freezer temperature range of -3℃ to -8℃, supercooling is most likely to happen and is independent of the water’s initial temperature. Furthermore, as the freezer temperature decreases, the probability of nucleation increases, causing instant freezing. Finally, it is concluded that the Mpemba effect, in which initially hot water freezes faster than initially cold water, is due to the supercooling instability in initially hot water in which nucleation agents are more active.