This Virtual Special Issue seeks to fill the knowledge gaps in ice research by pushing the research field to develop a deeper understanding of ice formation mechanisms in heterogeneous systems. Submit your manuscript by September 30, 2024.

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From the warming Arctic to the search for life across our solar system, ice is a key research focus of many scientific disciplines. In contrast to ice being an important water storage medium and the Earth’s great reflector, ice is also a critical obstacle to navigation, communication, and transportation networks across the globe.

In nature, ice is widely encountered in heterogeneous settings; with dissolved salts, entrapped particles, and formed on surfaces. Increasingly sophisticated computational models and experimental instrumentation provide new opportunities to understand mechanisms that inhibit or facilitate ice formation in a predictable manner.

This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) on “Heterogeneous drivers of ice formation,” to be published in Crystal Growth & Design (CG&D) and The Journal of Physical Chemistry C (JPC C), seeks to fill the knowledge gaps in ice research by pushing the research field to develop a deeper understanding of ice formation mechanisms in heterogeneous systems; those that include mixed phase components, surfaces and interfaces, as well as soluble and insoluble additives. Researchers are encouraged to submit their new and unpublished work by September 30, 2024.

Topics will primarily include, but are not limited to:

  • Crystallization of ice, including nucleation and ice microstructures
  • Ice surfaces and interfaces within ice including biomaterial interfaces
  • Thermal, mechanical, optical properties of ice
  • Ice binding proteins, including antifreeze proteins and their properties (thermal hysteresis, dynamic ice shaping, ice recrystallization inhibition)
  • Extra-terrestrial ice
  • Ice chemistry and photochemistry

Organizing Editors

This VSI will be managed by:

Dr. Emily Asenath-Smith, Guest Editor
US Army ERDC/CRREL

Prof. Kevin Hammonds, Guest Editor
Montana State University

Submission Instructions

Authors should submit to whichever journal best suits their audience. The scope for both journals can be found here:

Published VSI articles from both journals will be featured in the final web collection.

To ensure an unbiased peer-review process, each journal asks that you do not indicate within your manuscript that the submission is intended for the VSI. If you do, your manuscript will be returned for correction. Instead, when you submit your manuscript, please indicate this in your cover letter. Peer review will be handled by the JPC and CG&D Editors.

The submission deadline is September 30, 2024.

Contributing to this Virtual Special Issue

If you are unsure if your research is within the scope of this VSI or have other questions about submitting a manuscript to this VSI, please contact either the CG&D editorial office at steed-office@crystal.acs.org or the JPC C editorial office at hartland-office@jpc.acs.org.

Open Access: There are diverse open-access options for publications in American Chemical Society journals. Please visit our Open Science Resource Center for more information.

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