Supercooled Water

[frosch45]

If you were to take distilled water and supercool it (take the temp below the boiling point but it still remains in the liquid phase) and then if you were to attempt to drink it, would it freeze in your throat and possibly suffocate you!?

 

Just reading a little of a chem book that I have, the thought occured to me, thought it was interesting.....

[ecoli]

If you were to take distilled water and supercool it (take the temp below the boiling point but it still remains in the liquid phase)

I think you mean freezing point here, not boiling point.

 

The answer, I think is 'no' because, as far as I'm aware, super cooled liquids can only occur when you only have a few molecules, unless your adding external pressure. In that case, a few molecules probably isn't going to do much.

 

Keep in mind, though, the basis behind my knowledge about supercooled water is from studying a little bit of cloud particle formation, so I might not be right on this... depending on what context you had in mind.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I know you could pull it off with a supersaturated liquid. The effect would be just as crazy when you try to drink it.

[John Cuthber]

"The answer, I think is 'no' because, as far as I'm aware, super cooled liquids can only occur when you only have a few molecules, unless your adding external pressure. "

Well, I have seen a test tube full and there's no theoretical limit to how much you can have.

I think it's plausible enough for the plot of a murder mystery but probably not reliable enough to try it.

[insane_alien]

it would freeze before it got to the back of your mouth. the tongue would provide too many seed locations for ice crystals to form. not to mention that salivais full of bacteria, proteins and other solutes.

[Klaynos]

I think it'd probably freeze as soon as you picked it up, and certainly just after your lips touched it, I doubt you could get much into your mouth....

 

And you can make quite large quantities of it, you just need everything to be really really clean...

[frosch45]

haha

 

Well, I was just thinking theoretically....

 

I supersaturated Sodium Acetate a while ago, It was kina interesting, I just didn't realize that it would also work to super cool it.

 

And of course insane_alien, I would think it only proper for the subjet to have his or her mouth full open with the back of the throat exposed for easy access

 

And I personaly have seen a whole liter of supercooled water freeze!

[insane_alien]

doesn't matter, the instant it couches you it will find a nucleation site(couldn't think of that term my last post, had a total mental block) and freeze.

[Klaynos]

doesn't matter, the instant it couches you it will find a nucleation site(couldn't think of that term my last post, had a total mental block) and freeze.

 

Indeed, even moving it through the air, get a bit of dust in it, before you even get to drink it you've got a glass full of ice...

[person]

how cold could "supercooled water be ?

What is the limit to how cold it could be (before it freezes or something happens to it) ?

 

There are some good videos on u tube of Supercooled water you must check it out if you have tome.

 

Is there a way of making Sodium Acetate ?

[frosch45]

If I'm not mistaken, the reaction of acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) yields carbon dioxide and sodium acetate

 

but you would have to evaporate it for a LONG time that way because vinegar is extremely dilute

[Pleiades]

I had the coolest thing happen to me the other day: I had a 1.5 litre plastic bottle of iced tea in the freezer to cool down quickly, and I took it out just before it froze. There were no ice crystals until I opened the top and broke the seal, then crystals started to form at the top and then spread to the bottom of the bottle in maybe 40 seconds leaving the whole bottle a super fine slush (it was delicious too). It was really neat to see to see a crystallization ‘front’. The bottle was firm, but un-carbonated. Is this related to supercooling?

[Klaynos]

I had the coolest thing happen to me the other day: I had a 1.5 litre plastic bottle of iced tea in the freezer to cool down quickly, and I took it out just before it froze. There were no ice crystals until I opened the top and broke the seal, then crystals started to form at the top and then spread to the bottom of the bottle in maybe 40 seconds leaving the whole bottle a super fine slush (it was delicious too). It was really neat to see to see a crystallization ‘front’. The bottle was firm, but un-carbonated. Is this related to supercooling?

 

It's not really supercooling in the sense we where talking about, because what you've done is changed the pressure on the liquid, by opening it you've physically given space to the water to turn into ice which has a larger volume...

[frosch45]

When water freezes, its structure changes to form crystals that actually take up more space than the free-flowing liquid

 

not too many substances do that, a lot of them get smaller when freezing

[John Cuthber]

I doubt that any drink bottle is strong enough to stand the sort of pressure that would supress freezing to any noticable extent.

I think it's much more likely that what Pleiades observed was supercooling.

[foodchain]

If you were to take distilled water and supercool it (take the temp below the boiling point but it still remains in the liquid phase) and then if you were to attempt to drink it, would it freeze in your throat and possibly suffocate you!?

 

Just reading a little of a chem book that I have, the thought occured to me, thought it was interesting.....

 

 

You would have to control the environment a whole lot. I know that in carbon nanorods(?) water cannot freeze simply because it does not have the room to obtain such a formation as it grows by roughly 10% I think, not in how much is there just space occupied. So just to use pressure alone I think would be devastating to the individual involved. The same thing happens in under water volcanic vents in which the water should be in a gas phase but because of pressure remains a liquid.

 

As for drinking something like that well I think its bond energy that is changed on the molecular scale between phases, such as one unit of ice has to react to X energy to change all the involved bonds that make it ice or a solid vs. being a liquid. So if you could control it to the point of being able to drink it there would be I guess a thermal equation of the tissue involved with the amount of super cooled liquid over a period of time. I am sure your subjects muscular hydrostat would not like it at all.

[Mr Skeptic]

I had the coolest thing happen to me the other day: I had a 1.5 litre plastic bottle of iced tea in the freezer to cool down quickly, and I took it out just before it froze. There were no ice crystals until I opened the top and broke the seal, then crystals started to form at the top and then spread to the bottom of the bottle in maybe 40 seconds leaving the whole bottle a super fine slush (it was delicious too). It was really neat to see to see a crystallization ‘front’. The bottle was firm, but un-carbonated. Is this related to supercooling?

 

Looks like supercooling to me. The same thing can happen with soda bottles, but it turns to slush almost instantly. In the case of the soda, I would say it is because opening it causes rapid bubble formation which agitates and provides multiple nucleation sites, either of which would cause a supercooled liquid to freeze. Yours also seems like supercooling to me, but I don't know what would have triggered it (whether dust from the air, or being agitated, or something else).

[Klaynos]

I read something interesting the other day, under some Arctic ice there is a layer of super cooled water....

[hermanntrude]

I think in that case they're saying "supercooled" meaning below the normal freezing point of [salt] water, but under the ice is a very different environment, very cold, very high pressure. It probably means not that it is "supercooled" in the sense that it might go crinch any minute and turn into an arctic slushie, but that it's colder than you might expect, given the normal conditions under which water is liquid.

[Klaynos]

It's from this article:

 

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19826591.800-climate-scientists-go-with-the-floe.html

 

The pressure and temperature at these depths holds water in a supercooled state

 

It's called frazil ice:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frazil_ice

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.fl.13.010181.002115

[alwynj48]

Here is a link to one of the utube clips of super cooled water

 

[frosch45]

i thought this thread had every picolitre of juice squeezed out of it

 

also

Edited July 7, 2008 by frosch45

[insane_alien]

arr there be an edit button for a reason. </pirate accent>

[frosch45]

lol, yeah, sorry. its just that right then, believe it or not, just as it is right now, there isn't an edit button even though i'm logged in and everything. wierd

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

There's an edit time limit on posts -- after a certain time they're uneditable except by mods.