supercooled water

Experiments at Lenape High School from a few years ago involving bottles of Fiji water that are super-cooled but still in liquid form. Ice crystals form when the water is disturbed, shaken, or poured on to a chilled surface.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• supercooled
• supercool
• super
• cool
• chill
• chilled
• instant
• freeze
• frozen
• ice
• crystals
• crystallize
• science
• integrated
• skills
• seng
• foley
• lenape
• high
• school

[Noname17ful]

Ok is not fake , but what is explicasion?

[misterseng]

@Noname17ful Not 100% sure but check out some of the recent post discussions above :)

[thefatcat740]

So this is caused by water temperature being lowered below freezing but not being disturbed whatsoever? that sounds quite easy and is really cool!

[misterseng]

@thefatcat740 Yes, simple to set up and do at home! BUT at times difficult to control the variables influencing crystallization, for instance, many freezers shake when compressors kick on (or people grab their lunch, etc) and this mild shaking can cause the water to crystallize preemptively.

[Coastfog]

I like you, misterseng. I hope (and believe) your students like you as well! ;)

[misterseng]

@Coastfog thanks for the kind compliments! I am quite fond of all of my students and wish them the very best for success in everything they do in life :)

[TheKylesauce]

Real talk, you know you're on the wrong side of youtube when you're watching water freeze.

[DaBodyGuard13]

To put this into another context, water can stay in the liquid form all the way to -40 (both C and F, it is the same) What you see in the video is exactly what happens when a aircraft picks up ice while flying though freezing rain. The impact of the water droplet on the fuselage, tail, and wings causes the water to freeze instantly, just as when they tap the water bottle on the table.

J.W. ~Pilot

[MrSeattlebound]

This is the song I do drivebys to in GTA

[Flagritriba]

@Noname17ful Sodium acetate

[misterseng]

@Erobazai that's awesome! We had a storm like that a few years back where everything was sheathed in ice (actually the picture of the frozen branches I used in the opening sequence was taken after that storm)

[misterseng]

@SENSIBLECHEMIST I'm not really sure in all honesty. Maybe the phenomenon has something to do with water being a polar molecule and that, unlike most other substances going from a liquid to solid state, water expands when it freezes. Perhaps there is a small "purgatory" zone in which water starts to contract (like all other matter) at it's freezing point but then gets suspended as a liquid as the molecules arrange before expansion? Again, just thinking out loud here :)

[misterseng]

@SENSIBLECHEMIST Something like that, but this water actually isn't pure or distilled. It has an average mineral content (mostly silicates) dissolved from the artesian aquifer where it was bottled in Fiji.

[misterseng]

@beastthree for whatever it's worth, we found that if we cooled the water faster (in a freezer at constant low temps) we almost always wound up with frozen bottles. When we slowed the cooling down a bit (still constant low temp of around 18 F) by using a small cooler to insulate, we were able to keep things liquid much more frequently.

[misterseng]

@rumneyjoe I liked the "cool" reference and thought it worked well thematically with the video. I would never wish a state of being homeless upon anyone :(