Extended Spreading of Saline Droplets upon Impact on a Frosty Surface

Abstract: Understanding the solidification dynamics of impacted water droplets is fundamental and crucial for applications, especially with the presence of frost and salt. Here, we experimentally investigate the spreading and freezing dynamics of saline droplets upon impact on a cold, frosty surface. Our findings demonstrate that the frost and salt can lead to an extended spreading of impacted droplets under specific conditions. In addition to the well-known 1/2 inertial spreading scaling law for droplets impact on a cold substrate, we observe a distinct transition to a 1/10 scaling law dominated by the capillary-viscous relation at low impacting velocities. We formulate the onset criterion for this extended spreading regime and derive a scaling dependence that captures the droplet's arrested diameter over various supercooling temperatures, by incorporating the effect of impact inertia, partial-wetting behavior and salinity. Based on the analysis, a unified model is proposed for predicting the droplet arrested diameter over a wide range of impact velocity and salinity.