Hey guys, Remember the instant freeze of the soda bottles?

[jeepnik]

Well, danged, I just did it my self. Went to get some tonic water, uncapped the bottle, part of the contents spewed out, and the rest froze solid. Darned good thing I read about this here, or I'd have been calling Ripley's.

[williamranks]

Sounds like a trip to the store. I gotta see that.

[El Chivo]

So, how does that work?

I thought water would just freeze and break the bottle when it got cold enough. Does the pressure lower the freezing point?

[rjohns94]

(P1xV1)/T1=(P2xV2)/T2. By removing the top, pressure drops, lowering temperature and instantly freezing the contents. Other things going on there to with partial pressures of gases and such, but that is the basic physics

[piller]

The reason it didn't break the bottle is that there was plenty of CO2 gas in the liquid and as the liquid froze and expanded, the CO2 gave it room so that it didn't expand beyond the limits of the glass.

[jeepnik]

(P1xV1)/T1=(P2xV2)/T2. By removing the top, pressure drops, lowering temperature and instantly freezing the contents. Other things going on there to with partial pressures of gases and such, but that is the basic physics

Thanks for saving me having to explain this one, again. I should have found the thread and put in a link.

Oh, and it was a plastic bottle. It was only partly filled, and as I said, a bit of the contents (a cup or so) spewed out. Just for the heck of it, I waited to see how long it would take to melt. Sitting on the counter, room in the mid 70's, and it took over three hours. If you think about it, that was quite a bit of energy being vented when the bottle was opened. Now, if I can just figure out a use for this bit of physics, I might get rich.

[olyinaz]

Super cooling guys. I've seen it many times (beers and sodas) right out of the fridge (that's how you know your fridge is a bit too cool) and sometimes from an ice chest if there's any salt in the water/on the ice.

Video demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fot3m7kyLn4

Technical explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling

And speaking of super cool - science in general is super cool!

[765x53]

The reason it didn't break the bottle is that there was plenty of CO2 gas in the liquid and as the liquid froze and expanded, the CO2 gave it room so that it didn't expand beyond the limits of the glass.

I remember a particular country store where my Dad would stop. I would always get a "Bubble Up" because it was always like drinking a "Slushie" before Slushies existed. Maybe that is what was happening.

[retmech]

I have seen it with just plain water. I first saw it with a bottle of Windex window cleaner on the front seat of my car. Car was parked outside in Detroit in the winter time overnight and the temps were in the mid 20's. I saw it on the seat and thought it was strange that it wasn't frozen. I picked the bottle up to look at it and it froze immediately just from the movement. I told a fellow at work about that and he didn't believe me. One night we went out to preflight our aircraft for departure in the winter and one of the pilots had left a bottle of water on the seat. When he moved it to do his check it froze instantly just like my Windex had. I had the same experience a couple times after that. Sometimes if the water is undisturbed it can get super cooled and when you move it the water freezes . It doesn't have anything to do with pressure, just movement.

[olyinaz]

I have seen it with just plain water. I first saw it with a bottle of Windex window cleaner on the front seat of my car. Car was parked outside in Detroit in the winter time overnight and the temps were in the mid 20's. I saw it on the seat and thought it was strange that it wasn't frozen. I picked the bottle up to look at it and it froze immediately just from the movement. I told a fellow at work about that and he didn't believe me. One night we went out to preflight our aircraft for departure in the winter and one of the pilots had left a bottle of water on the seat. When he moved it to do his check it froze instantly just like my Windex had. I had the same experience a couple times after that. Sometimes if the water is undisturbed it can get super cooled and when you move it the water freezes . It doesn't have anything to do with pressure, just movement.

Yep!!

[jackruff]

(P1xV1)/T1=(P2xV2)/T2. By removing the top, pressure drops, lowering temperature and instantly freezing the contents. Other things going on there to with partial pressures of gases and such, but that is the basic physics

The equation you quoted is the ideal gas law, a combination of Boyle's Law (for pressure) and Charles' Law (for temperature). It applies to gases only, and only approximately for real gases. It does not apply to liquids. However, water, and a soda is mostly water, does freeze (and melt) at a lower temperature when under pressure. When the cap is removed the pressure on the liquid drops and the water then freezes at the temperature it already has. It doesn't get colder. (If it were an expanding gas it would get colder.) This is why you can make a snowball by squeezing snow. When you squeeze the snow it melts; when you stop squeezing it refreezes and sticks together. But snow can be too cold to melt by squeezing, so when it's very cold you can't make a snowball. An interesting point to make is that a liquid freezes and melts at the same temperature. So how does it "know" which to do? That's a lesson for another day.

[3leggedturtle]

If you want to see something really nasty. Freeze Diet Mt. Dew, when its half thawed, shake it up and pour it into a glass, you will get a plastic chewey type of product that comes out. Still aint figured it out, but sure some one here will know why it happened and what it is.