Freezing Acutely Distilled Water

[Caleb Anderson]

This is a picture of a spike that shot up from my ice-cubes because the ice is 100% acutely distilled "empty" water. I thought it was facinating that the water was able to freez so uniformely because there are not any minerals in the water to hold the molecules down while the water expands.

 

 

 

 

While the water was expanding it must have held a pocket of warm water then when it expanded to the point where the warmer water had no where to go the expanding forced a stream upwards and the stream froze in spike.

 

If I could only get a camera in my freezer while this is happening.

 

 

[Phi for All]

Actually, my tap water does this pretty frequently. It's not a property of distilled water. We had a thread on this phenomenon once before, I'll see if I can find it and link to it.

 

Edit: Here's the other thread about ice cube spikes.

[Essay]

This is a picture of a spike that shot up from my ice-cubes because the ice is 100% acutely distilled "empty" water.

 

If I could only get a camera in my freezer while this is happening.

 

Hey! Thank you for letting me know I'm not the only one seeing those spires!

 

For years I've been asking people about those, only to get blank looks when I'd try to describe the little frozen jet-spike.

 

It's been 20 years since I've made icecubes regularly; but I recall these things, and your picture is entirely consistent with many of the trays that I pulled out of the freezer back then.

 

I pondered and experimented a bit, and I don't think it depends upon distilled water. The icecube tray itself is crucial to fostering this phenomenon, it seemed to me. While your tray is different from mine, it does contain the features which I felt were decisive in promoting this "jet spiking" behaviour. That feature is the depression of the dividers at the intersection of the individual icecube compartments.

 

This allows a frozen skin to form over the surface (before the sides or bottom freeze) if the water level is adjusted so that a continuous surface, which connects all (or many adjacent) of the icecube compartments, inundates those depressions at the intersections of the compartments.

 

That very thin layer of water (covering the depressions/intersections) freezes much sooner than any other part of the water volume, and this leads to a thin skin forming over the entire water volume that would not be able to form if each cube were isolated.

 

If the cubes weren't connected by that thin intersection, then the sides and bottom would freeze concurrently with the surface. But with the "seed" of frozen water at each intersection, the surface could freeze long before the sides and bottom cooled enough to solidify. Later when the lower part freezes and expands, water in the center that is super cooled is expelled as a jet through a flaw in the surface--freezing in mid air.

 

Notice the little trail of teeny air bubbles that have been dragged up the center of the spire?

 

It looks as if your tray was half empty, and then the empty cells were refilled with water; and it was one of those refilled compartments that jet-spiked. Is that correct? I ask because the cubes (in focus) behind the spire seem larger and freeze-fractured, whereas the foreground cubes seem smooth, smaller, and unfractured.

 

I noticed over the years that they always very close to the angle that yours seems to be--about 70 degrees-- or some 15 to 25 degrees off of the perpendicular? I never did any measurements; but it was definitely more that 45 degrees, and much more like 60 degrees or more. As I recall they point toward the center of the tray, rather than to the outside; and the base is never in the center of the cube' surface, but originates about halfway between the center and an outside corner or whatever compartment happens to spring a leak.

===

 

I just read the other thread from '09. Sorry I missed that, but I hope this (above) helps. My trays looks like the blue one in the other thread [link above: Thanks Phi!].

 

The point is... it has the depressions at the intersections of the compartments which favor the formation of an early ice-skin on the surface, if the water level is adjusted within certain limits.

 

The lower the water level--but of course still high enough to connect all adjacent cells--the more likely you are to get a spiking event, from my experience. I think I always used tap water, so the distilled aspect shouldn't affect this phenom. But hey, with today's neat digital cameras, maybe somebody could get a shot of one forming. I'm sure they form almost instantly, so a high speed camera might be needed to get a decent shot. Enjoy!

 

~

 

google search:

 

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/icespikes/icespikes.htm

 

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

 

http://www.inspirations-in-ice.com/

 

http://www.inspirations-in-ice.com/gridrdate.php

{artistic photos of (modified?) spikes}

 

!!!

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~smorris/edl/icespikes/icespikes.html

{with videos of growing spikes}!!!

!!!

 

~

 

 

Edited December 10, 2011 by Essay

[Caleb Anderson]

One observations that makes it so amazing is that it is as small as a needle and had no larger base. To answer your question the icecube tray was empty when I filled it and full when I froze it; this is a picture of the first ice cube spike I have ever seen and it was tiny I snapped the picture in less than 60 seconds of taking it out of the freezer but it had already started to melt and lose it's needle like shape, you can see drips falling down it. About 30 seconds before this picture was snapped the needle shape looked much more defined. I've grown more spikes and most of them are fat and don't even really come to a point additionally have an observable base therefore are less visually appealing. I find that facinating a thin frozen film formes over the cubes in some instences of freezing H2O and then when the water beneath the film freezes and expands it shoots through a deformit in the thin layer slowly forming a spike.

This is another ice spike this one doesn't have a base either and is equaly facinating I like it's uniform shape. I thought that it was the distilled water because I have never seen this before and I just started distilling my water here I have really hard water that I have to distill I thought this phenomenon would be much more difficult to harbor if there is a lot of calcium in the water for example which is outrageously plentiful in my tap water. I like the idea that my distilled water has more facinating phonominal properties than the dirty water out of the tap. I would be interested to know how "hard" others tap water is that has witnessed this phonomenon?

[TonyMcC]

I think this may well be an effect of supercooling. This is where a liquid can be taken to a much lower temperature than its freezing point and still be liquid. Perhaps a jet of supercooled water breaks out of the surrounding ice and immediately freezes on contact with something in the air. I once hit a rain storm involving supercooled rain which froze so quickly on my car windscreen that the wipers just bounced over the rough sheet of ice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling

[Caleb Anderson]

Wow so supercooling thanks, it sounds like the spike is essentially an ice crystal.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Caleb Anderson