If you thought that science is all predictable and there’s nothing much to know about water, you might wanna recalibrate your beliefs coz what we’re about to tell you will blow your minds away (literally!).
We all know that water boils on heating and on cooling down, it freezes to form ice. But what if you could freeze boiling water? As shocking as it sounds, under right conditions you can actually freeze the boiling water.
Here’s how you can achieve the impossible:
What you need for the experiment?
Water, acetone, vacuum pump and marble chips.
How to freeze boiling water?
We know that acetone, which is basically the nail paint remover, evaporates at room temperature, while water boils at 100 degrees Celcius. The trick is to freeze the boiling water is by boiling acetone.
Here’s what you need to do: Add water, acetone and some marble chips in a flask and put the flask under a bell jar. Now turn on the vacuum pump.
As the vacuum pump is turned on, it sucks the air out from inside the bell jar, lowering the pressure inside the bell jar and making the acetone boil at a much lower temperature. The water and acetone are getting colder as the acetone boils.
As the vacuum pump continues to suck out any gas, the mixture continues to cool down and ultimately freezes.
Confused how this happened? Well, the funda is simple. You need to apply heat to boil water and acetone. Since acetone boils at much lower temperature, on boiling it, you are actually taking the heat away from water, making it freeze. The process takes about 6-7 minutes, so be patient.
But that’s not it, there is another way as well.
What you need for the experiment?
Water, pressure chamber, Magnesium Sulphate anhydrous and Calcium Sulphate.
How to freeze boiling water?
The boiling point of any liquid depends on two things- pressure and temperature. Instead of boiling the water by increasing the temperature, we’ll boil the water by decreasing the pressure.
Here’s what you need to do: Take a flask and add some water in it. Now place this flask in a beaker and add Magnesium Sulphate anhydrous and Calcium Sulphate inside the beaker. Now place the beaker inside the pressure chamber and turn on the vaccum pump.
As the pressure in the chamber continues to decrease, the water continues to boil and lose heat at the same time. As the water boils, the molecules with higher energy turn into vapour (gas) and are sucked out from the chamber, leaving the colder molecules behind.
As the boiling process continues, water in the flask cools down and ultimately freezes.
