Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165
ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."
Re:I could be stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought pure water doesn't go solid, not until an impurity starts crystal formation that turns the water into a solid?
Israeli Scientists (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing new I have noticed this with my beer ;-)) (Score:5, Interesting)
When I put a beer in the freezer too long but not that long, when I take it out of the freezer, I can see it is pretty 100% liquid inside the bottle. Now, taking it out of the freezer makes it warmer and opening it even warmer due to air circulation inside the bottle.
Well, when I open it, it turns to ice so I make my beer freeze by making it warmer so nothing new here ;--))))
Very seriously, I swear this is true but I understand it could be due to other factors that the ones described in TFA like pressure inside the bottle but I thought it would interesting to mention anyway.
Haven't anybody else seen their beer freeze in their hand while opening it just after it has been in the freezer although it was in a liquid state when they actually took it out of the freezer ?
Re:I could be stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
In this supercooled water experiment [youtube.com] video, notice that the supercooled water freezes after the bottle is tapped. So energy is put into it, meaning that it is warmed up slightly. Isn't this also reversing the cold-warm solid-liquid order?
So that's Frozone's trick! (Score:3, Interesting)
He must be negatively charged (thus keeping water a liquid on or in him) and then the moment he "releases" it, it freezes!
Could there be some sort of industrial application for this, like ice-making where you have a jet of "liquid" water (because it is kept in a negatively charged apparatus) but upon contact with something, loses its charge and freezes? How about rapid construction of ice sculptures? Just like spray on concrete.
I even seem to remember someone in WWII proposing making giant pontoons/floating islands out of ice and hay.
How about in Antarctica/on Mars using it for rapid construction of ice domes? Once it solidifies it won't melt.
Re:Applications? (Score:4, Interesting)
Apply that weird surface to generate the weird behaviour, and use it to power a Stirling engine.
Re:I could be stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I could be stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought pure water doesn't go solid, not until an impurity starts crystal formation that turns the water into a solid?
This comment seems really unintuitive so I looked around a little. Ice [wikipedia.org] can actually form entirely without crystallization, by cooling it to ~137 C in a matter of milliseconds. The article also mentions that "pure water, in the absence of any nucleating surface, can remain in a supercooled liquid state down to temperatures as low as -40C". I guess that means that pure water will begin crystallizing at this temperature anyway.
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it's more like the realization that Canada is south of Detroit [google.com].
Re:Ah, I see you are an american (Score:3, Interesting)
My state used to have some weird laws carried over from those days. They have changed somewhat since. But until pretty recently, (1) it was illegal to show alcohol content on bottles, cans, or their packaging. (2) Beer bought in regular stores was limited to 3.4% alcohol by volume. But you could get beer or ale of higher alcohol content at a state liquor store.
That led to some strange situations. For example, you could get Rainier Ale in the store, at 3.4%, and at the liquor store at about 9% if I remember. But because of the law, there was no indication of strength on the cans, which all had identical green and gold printing. So people made some pretty major mistakes now and then.
Fortunately the laws here have become somewhat more reasonable, but a typical domestic mass-produced lager in most of the U.S. is still usually around 3.4%. It's getting better, though, with all the smaller breweries that have started up.
What, no Mr.Freeze tag on this article? (Score:1, Interesting)
You could make one heck of a freeze gun with this technology... spray things and they freeze
Re:Israeli Scientists (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ah, I see you are an american (Score:2, Interesting)
Not only is it not particularly hoppy, it has a pretty significant rice content. If anything, bud is hop-flavored rice alcohol. This being said, it's still my favorite mass market beer.
Yes, we live in a cultural backwater as far as beer is concerned. In Mexico the cheap regular beer is some of the best on the planet.
Re:I could be stupid (Score:3, Interesting)