icecream with liquid nitrogen :)

[Comandante]

In my first year of uni (last year) I witnessed something 'cool'; icecream made with liquid nitrogen before my eyes, and I had my portion after that I was skeptic to try it at first since I never heard of anything like it, but it did work and icecream was great!! Did anyone else try it?

 

What I'm curious, and what the lecturer didn't explain, is what happened to the nitrogen? Did it simply go into the air? Perhaps she did but I kind'of forgot I know there was a lot of ... something that resembled smoke but fell to the ground and disappeared... was this concentrated nitrogen that eventually mixed with air? Explanations?

[swansont]

Did this in grad school, where LN is readily available. It just boils off and becomes part of the air around you, which is mostly nitrogen anyway. The "smoke" was partially-condensed vapor (i.e. very small droplets of the liquid) that was still evaporating.

 

Since the cream freezes quickly, it makes small crystals, which is what is supposed to make it nice and smooth.

[Klaynos]

I keep meaning to try this now I have basically free access to the big dewers at uni

[Comandante]

ahh I see... so that's why it tasted so good, I thought I was biased there for a sec

[jdurg]

The "smoke" was partially-condensed vapor (i.e. very small droplets of the liquid) that was still evaporating.

 

I HIGHLY doubt that. Unless your professor took the liquid N2 and sprayed it into a mist in the air, the "smoke" was not liquid nitrogen. The "smoke" you saw was suspended particles of solid H2O in the air. Liquid Nitrogen is so cold that the little bit of humidity which is in the air will solidify into small ice particles. The exact same effect is seen when you put solid CO2 (dry ice) into water.

[Comandante]

I HIGHLY doubt that. Unless your professor took the liquid N2 and sprayed it into a mist in the air, the "smoke" was not liquid nitrogen. The "smoke" you saw was suspended particles of solid H2O in the air. Liquid Nitrogen is so cold that the little bit of humidity which is in the air will solidify into small ice particles. The exact same effect is seen when you put solid CO2 (dry ice) into water.

 

Actually this makes more sense. Especially when you mentioned dry ice because I just recalled that it does indeed show same 'smoke' effect, just not as much of it. Interesting.