Experimental Study on Solidification Characteristics of Sessile Urine Droplets on a Horizontal Cold Plate Surface under Natural Convection

As the human excreta, urine is often used as one of the test materials in medical research due to its composition and content directly reflecting the health status of the body. Considering that the substances in urine may show different effects on its freezing process, solidification characteristics of sessile urine droplets on a horizontal cold plate surface under natural convection were experimentally investigated by comparing with those of water droplets under same conditions. To make the conclusion analysis more reasonable, the urine of a human without any diseases, especially metabolic diseases, was treated and used. The characteristics include nucleation location, dynamic variation of droplet color, and temperatures at different heights inside the droplet, and so forth. It was found that, similar to that of a water droplet, the solidification process of a urine droplet also experiences the following four stages: supercooling, recalescence, freezing, and cooling, in chronological order. Differently, the urine droplet changes from transparent to blur white at the supercooling stage due to the precipitation of inorganic salts. For nucleation locations, 46.67% cases are at the bottom, while others are at the top and middle of urine droplets. For a 10 μL droplet on a surface of -30 °C, urine has a 0.95 s freezing duration shorter than water, and a 5.31 °C lower phase-transition temperature. Results of this study are expected to reflect the content of substances in urine and thus provide references for urinalysis of patients with metabolic diseases.