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Instant Ice, the Geeky Way

techeblog.com — Unlike supercooling, this method of making instant ice is a bit quicker. Video after the break.

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  • RSXtacy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+16Alright that was pretty cool... (could have used better music, but i digress)

    One Question though is the Sodium Acetate harmful to the human body?
    • ketias, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12From wikipedia:
      "Sodium acetate is the chemical that gives salt and vinegar chips their flavour."
      so it's probably fairly safe, although it must taste terrible
      • uberlord, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1I love Salt and Vinegar Chips, but I must say, that was the first digg comment to make me laugh today... and i've been on for several hours =)
      • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1@ketias - thanks for doing what the op should have done...
    • Sparragus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6From Wikipedia:
      Main hazards: Irritant

      MSDS (Material safety data sheet):
      http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/s2666.htm
      Go to number 3.
      • ThndrShk2k, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Lab Protective Equip: GOGGLES; LAB COAT; VENT HOOD; PROPER GLOVES

        THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING >.
    • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4not really. use it all the time in the lab. For reference, it's MSDS health level is 1. This is the same value as sucrose (table sugar).
      • zweben, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3THE SUGAR!!! IT BURNS!!!
      • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.
    • Scheissen, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1buried for being a dupe and in the news
    • smackhero, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3techeblog's "articles" never have any original content (if any content at all). they just stole this off of metacafe and reposted it on their site. stop digging this crap.
    • Rosy720, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It's just the conjugate base of Acetic Acid (Vinegar)
    • fluffythekitten, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0"hey buddy - your ice tubes taste familiar..."
  • neiltc13, on 10/10/2007, -14/+5Buried as more TechEBlog spam.

    Direct link to video: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/737491/hot_ice/
  • Asriel86, on 10/10/2007, -10/+74It's not ice, and it's not cold.

    It's an exothermic reaction. They make heating compresses out of this stuff. It's poison. You'll die.
    • ketias, on 10/10/2007, -10/+4not poison. it's the same chemical they use in salt and vinegar chips to flavor them
      • jerryparid, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17Anything is poison in "large" amounts; you should definitely not ingest this stuff. (Even water, salt, etc)
      • uberlord, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2It's poison in the way That Alcohol is poison - and it is poison
    • Hipple, on 10/10/2007, -2/+31Too bad there's no "Oh *****, this will kill you" bury option.
    • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12actually it is ice, it is cold, and it won't kill you. It's basic high school chemistry. btw, the only reason it's exothermic is because the phase change from liquid to solid is exothermic. Pure water freezing into ice is also an exothermic reaction. That's why fruit growers spray their plants with water when it's gonna frost outside.
      • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1no, it's the recrystallization of a salt. not ice.
  • twrife, on 10/10/2007, -5/+6That guy has a lot of milk.
    • uberlord, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2He has it in Glass Bottles though, If I had glass bottles with milk in them, I'd be so retro =) Probably gets it delivered =/
  • EclipseAgent, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Wonder how much Acetate is giong to sell after this hits the front page
    • 30thElement, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7no need to buy it, just mix sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and vinegar. Filter the unreacted stuff out, and boil of a lot of excess water. Only adds about 1 step.
      • EclipseAgent, on 10/10/2007, -5/+1Wonder how many people are going to go to the store and buy Baking Soda and Vinegar... I sure don't have them laying around
        • uberlord, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2We do, and so do most people, they're both pretty basic cleaning supplies. Baking Soda is also a key ingredient for cooking too!
        • kcpwnsgman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3I am a college student, college students don't have anything to clean with or anything to cook for that matter
          • Coded1, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3No beter time to read up on how to take a shower!
      • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1i think you would have to react them together at ~80C though, as otherwise the solution wouldn't be saturated enough.
    • 9Digits, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2If you think Digg readers can affect the baking soda market, you are an idiot.
      • bagboyrebel, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3is that a challenge?
      • EclipseAgent, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Hey ***** idiot..

        Did ANYONE say that Digg readers were going to "effect" the baking soda market?

        I re-read my responses and the answer is NO... So get a life prick
  • Royal0, on 10/10/2007, -4/+12@Asriel86
    He's right, this is not ice, nor is it cold. It's really just a transformation from a liquid to a solid (via crystallization). It's hard at first, but then quickly turns into a gel like material.
  • Royal0, on 10/10/2007, -9/+3He's right, it's not ice. It's not even solid either, it's more of a gel material.
  • sdpdt, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12An aqueous solution of sodium acetate is not *ICE*. Heat flows from the warm finger to the cool solution causing it to change from a liquid to a solid -- just more techie chemistry exploited and explained terribly wrong.
    • Fusco, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Two main problems with that. First, liquid + thermal energy does not make a solid (in a normal situation - with enough added pressure it would, but that has nothing to do with the energy). Second, a light tap of the finger for less than a second won't add nearly enough "heat" to change something like this substantially.
    • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1it's not the heat from the finger that causes it to recrystallize. when you touch it it creates a nucleation point in what is essentially a supercooled version of a liquidized salt. sodium acetate is a salt at normal temperature, you heat and dissolve in a small amount of water and then cool back to a temperature where it would normally be a salt. everything else is the same concept as supercooled water.
      • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0sodium acetate would still be a salt even to ~320C. that's when it decomposes. When it is not dissolved, it is in a solid state. When you dissolve it, it is aqueous. The temperature of the solution has no impact on whether or not it is a 'salt' or not. An aquoues solution is NOT the same thing as a 'liquidized salt'.
  • Nick2632, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Well I damn sure won't be putting that in my Pepsi
  • DeFex, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3how strong is that, and can it be re-melted? might be cool for making molds
    • Otto, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Not very strong at all, and yes it can be remelted.
  • smurf22, on 10/10/2007, -7/+6instant ice

    1) Ice and salt with a little water
    2) Pour filtered water into a clean rinsed out glass
    3)Put tube in water/salt
    4) Let cool
    5) Touch the tube instant COLD ice that wont kill you
    • krusader3z, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1You are lying.
    • psykiv, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Start with ice to make ice? Reminds me of that adage. Whats the quickest way to become a millionaire? start as a billionaire.
    • johlin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2You forgot:
      6) ???
      7) Profit!
  • crapmatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5That music is like a band in 1983 opening for a Triumph concert.
  • SpyDerMann, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12OH NO!!! IT'S ICE-IX!!!
    • septicmadman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I had seen this video before, but I knew I was going to digg up this comment as soon as a I saw it.
    • geoffpado, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2oh, come on. It was NEVER spelled with Roman Numerals.
  • L4WL3RS34L, on 10/10/2007, -4/+84th time on Digg, and this is definitely supposed to be in the Video section, there's no news or anything. I really hate how people submit it to the News section just for more diggs.
  • cdmarcus, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2It's still supercooling, just at a higher temperature and requiring a larger stimulus to begin crystalizing due to the sodium acetate that's been added.
    IANAPhysicist, so I may be wrong, but that's my guess as to what's going on.
    • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1it's essentially the supercooling of a liquidized salt. the concept of a nucleation site (from when you touch it) and the *re*crystallization that occurs after is the same principle as supercooled water though.
  • mogdor, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Oh the fun I'm going to have fooling my kids into thinking I'm Iceman.........................
  • MasterInsan0, on 10/10/2007, -0/+18Wow..."video after the break"? I love how people just copy and paste the first words they see from the page into the digg submission and be done with it.
    • disabled4diggin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3what does this "after the break" or "after the jump" mean??? i always read that stupid ass line in the middle of some article. was there a point where the article didnt continue? and i had to wait to find out the rest? i dont get it.
      • snlildude87, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Some people prefer not to have videos on the front page.
  • Zandarrr, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1And it's hot!
  • crazymonkey1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I think this employs super saturation which is saturation at high temperatures that allows a solvent to retain more solute. When brought back to room temperature, the mixture is highly unstable and a single disturbance(or touch) could set off a reaction that forces the extra solute out.
  • joshuagor44, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Anyone know the name of the song?
  • zombieball, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14I had a chemistry teacher use this stuff for some "magic tricks". I believe you have to be quite careful that all your cups and pots and pans are quite clean while you make it. The reason it turns solid when you touch it is because the solution just needs some type of impurity to begin crystalization upon. Dropping a grain of sand in the solution will create the same effect.

    Cool trick to do with your friends. Pour the white powder in a non-see-through glass before hand. Pour some water into the glass infront of your friend, swirl it around a sec, then pretend to splash the water into the person's face. They will jump! Of course all the water has already turned to a firm jelly which is stuck in the glass (unless you do not put enough powder in, in which case your friend will be covered in a slimey goop. I made that mistake once, oops!)
    • inspecality, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10You're a fun friend.
    • bigal90, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7i could just imagin your freind with a bunch of goopy ***** all over em
  • tddk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3instant as in takes 5 hours to prep for. bury bury bury

    and as other said its not ice....burrrrrrrry
  • MackPrime, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5keep that stuff away from my scotch.
  • sdpdt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3By the way, this molecule is in the form of a hydrate. Therefore, adding water is a bit redundant, as you can simply heat this beyond it's melting point (approx 100 degrees centigrade) to create the solution. No additional water necessary.


    Thank you wikipedia.
    • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0uhh... no... heating it beyond 100C would simply dry off the water, making it even farther from being a solution. Wikipedia often has right answers, but only if you read them in the right context. Heating sodium acetate wouldn't create an aqueous solution. At ~100C, water is driven off. At ~320, it decomposes. There is also a maximum amount of water that can associate with the solid salt form of sodium acetate, fully hydrating it. Therefore, cooling the solid salt won't make a solution either. The only way to create an aqueous solution of sodium acetate is to add water. Water can't magically appear out of nowhere, and the amount of water in the atmosphere isn't enough to create a solution... generally. Tis called the conservation of matter. Sorry for being a jackass, but it's getting annoying with many people stating completely wrong reasons for why this happens. Bah!
  • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0will have to do again in the lab tomorrow morning. good way to play a practical joke on my colleagues...
  • mmykle, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3if u boil the "ice" it will return to its original state. then u can tap it again and it will turn into "ice".
  • diggmeup, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1imagine drinking some of this stuff
  • spucky, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I remember from when I was a kid (and I'm not looking it up tonight) reading a book about weird science things. One article was on making instant ice - the real stuff.

    According to the article, put water in a piston with an air tight seal and some air. Slam with a sledge hammer as hard as you can. Instant ice. Probably something to do with the decompression as the piston fired itself out of the top.

    Anyone have some physics on this?
    • Moosecapade, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2First of all, the rapid compression of air within the piston described is called an adiabatic compression, and it will heat up the air before it rapidly cools again.

      Even if you use and adiabatic expansion to rapidly cool the air, it won't do anything noticeable to the water, the system will quickly return to its original temperature.

      If you want to try an adiabatic expansion at home, get a large pickle jar and fill it a quarter of the way full, put rubber glove over the mouth of the jar and have a friend hold it tight onto the neck (effectively acting as clamp). Then insert your fist into the glove and pull out of it as quickly as possible, you will see the water vapor in the air crystalize into extremely fine ice particles for just a brief moment before returning to a gaseous state.
      • spucky, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I don't know why people are digging you down. That looks like a lot of information (for my tiny brain). I always figured that compression would increase heat and decompression would reduce heat. Therefore, the rapid decompression would be the one that would create the ice. Perhaps the compression creates more heat that does not dissipate before the expansion.

        Admittedly, I don't fully understand you. But, instead of a glove, we are slamming with a sledge hammer. Could not that cause a little more icefication than a rubber glove?
        • Moosecapade, on 12/26/2007, -0/+1The sledge hammer coming down would heat up the air, my point is that it quickly cools again since it is an adiabatic process.
    • bIuebonics, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1my only assumption is that because the water will require more force to compress than the air that a large force pushing down will go a limited distance but will travel a greater distance up as there is less resistance above it thus causing more decompression than compression.
  • mhaisley, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1For all of those who are not too lazy to try this, you don't need to buy sodium acetate, it's simply baking soda & vinegar, for a quick no-measure method, start with a pot mostly full of vinegar, add baking soda, stirring constantly until it stops reacting, then boil off all the liquid, whats left is sodium acetate. It's also used as a deicer on airplanes, and run ways. I use it on my drive way, chemistry is fun and useful.
  • Urusai, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1For even more fun, try this with oleum.
  • ibanez144, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'm pretty sure this is just crystallization- more material can dissolve in hot water than in cold water, so once the liquid is cooled and an imperfection is introduced into the solution (the finger touching the water), the crystals emerge from the liquid and the solution becomes a solid. Pretty basic chemistry, but this isn't ice at all, just solid sodium acetate crystals.
  • Harbinger67, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Clearly, this will usher in a new era in the art of sculpting giant ice penises.
  • brad3378, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1I'd love to see somebody make a 3D printer using this stuff.
  • bigal90, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1this is kinda ***** dumb maybe im jsut not geeky enough but who the ***** wants to go through all this chemical ***** when u can just get soem fresh outta your freeze or a huge bag for a doller at a grocery store
    • mrminty, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Dumbass. Just out of curiosity, are you a Bi Gal, Big al, or a Big Girl? Because I bet it's the latter.
  • ultralights, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0water + freezer = ice. real ice..
  • charlietuna, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That's not ice, sorry.
  • balls1127, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1The reaction is endothermic, not exothermic, because the reaction absorbs energy. If it was exothermic, then the beverage would become hot.
    • Moosecapade, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Crystallization is an exothermic process. Boiling is an endothermic process.
  • ilkeryoldas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3wow, this story makes popular every 20 days.. im not calling this dupe.. just pointing out something interesting
    http://digg.com/videos/educational/How_To_Make_Instant_Hot_Ice
    http://digg.com/videos/educational/How_to_make_hot_ice
    there was another one in the news section but i cant find it using search
  • streetr8cer13, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2my chem teacher used this stuff for the water in a glass trick it was funny butsince its exothermic it is not cold, it is warm

    http://www.hallpass.com/media/howtomakeinstanthotice.html#

    aka hot ice
  • mrminty, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1"Metacafe has removed this video"
    Amazing. I shouted that at a glass of water, and it was frozen solid within seconds.
  • LtXenodite, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This same video has been posted lots of times within the past 2 months.
  • csplinter, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0edit: misread something, post didn't make sense.
  • Leopards, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Here it is on youtube http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8396511065772673112&q=Instant+Ice&total=216&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
  • ali1979, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0This site doesn't have the pic anymore here is another look at it. http://digg.com/general_sciences/Instant_Ice_4
  • aedes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0once you've cooled down the solution, you have a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate, which i believe is also below it's freezing point. So it's supersaturated and supercooled. touching it provides little bits of dead skin...etc around which the sodium acetate can nucleate, causing it to recrystalize. At the same time, these pieces of dead skin/crystallized sodium acetate provide nuclei for ice to form. Therefore both freezing and recrystalization...i think???
  • ali1979, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0This site is down you can see the video here http://www.idblogthat.com/wp/
  • OUPablo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1mirror to video: http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=307412
  •  

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