Posted on 11/29/2016 10:44:51 PM PST by BenLurkin
MIT has found a completely unexpected set of changes: Inside the tiniest of spaces — in carbon nanotubes whose inner dimensions are not much bigger than a few water molecules — water can freeze solid even at high temperatures that would normally set it boiling.
...
“If you confine a fluid to a nanocavity, you can actually distort its phase behavior,” Strano says, referring to how and when the substance changes between solid, liquid, and gas phases. Such effects were expected, but the enormous magnitude of the change, and its direction (raising rather than lowering the freezing point), were a complete surprise: In one of the team’s tests, the water solidified at a temperature of 105 C or more. (The exact temperature is hard to determine, but 105 C was considered the minimum value in this test; the actual temperature could have been as high as 151 C.)
“The effect is much greater than anyone had anticipated,” Strano says.
It turns out that the way water’s behavior changes inside the tiny carbon nanotubes — structures the shape of a soda straw, made entirely of carbon atoms but only a few nanometers in diameter — depends crucially on the exact diameter of the tubes. “These are really the smallest pipes you could think of,” Strano says. In the experiments, the nanotubes were left open at both ends, with reservoirs of water at each opening.
Even the difference between nanotubes 1.05 nanometers and 1.06 nanometers across made a difference of tens of degrees in the apparent freezing point, the researchers found. Such extreme differences were completely unexpected. “All bets are off when you get really small,” Strano says. “It’s really an unexplored space.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.mit.edu ...
So a black hole's singularity might be infinitely hot ice?
Fantastic! I want some of those nanotube ice cubes.
No, because it’s hot. But the water is in ice state.......but not cold. It’s because the water molecules are trapped, they cannot move which is what happens when water freezes. When water is heated up the molecules become more and more energetic, and move around faster and faster. But if they cannot move, they cannot be liquid.
Interesting.
Unanswered in the article, at least my limited knowledge is the question, if it’s frozen does that mean it’s cold? Or does the restriction in size merely raise the melting point?
Imagine a refrigerator that doesn’t use electricity. Or a cold shirt for a hot day.
(Bad pun intended) This sounds really cool!
Those amazingly clever guys/gals at MIT can do pretty much anything.
So how about developing a really good fifty-cent cigar....?
Well - if by “cool” you mean 105 degrees Celsius.
“this solid water doesn’t melt until well above the normal boiling point of water” That would have trapped water in nanotubes of a certain size as an additive at all times. When the nanotube field emission experts were trying to use the nanotube platform to build electron beam bases for displays and X-ray tubes, they would try to seal the water out. Those tiny emitters can explode unexpectedly. They went to lengths to purify and catalogue those tube types too.
“It’s because the water molecules are trapped, they cannot move which is what happens when water freezes. When water is heated up the molecules become more and more energetic, and move around faster and faster. But if they cannot move, they cannot be liquid.”
Must be a lot of pent up/stored up energy in those water molecules. Just like Kevin Bacon being stuck in church, they’re wanting to bust out and start dancing at those temps, but are trapped in the tubes. Probably lots of energetic angry vibes being sent out from being locked up like that.
They can’t move. So there is less and less energy as the nanoscale drops. That’s why the water will freeze at a higher temperature as the size goes down.
Here comes high temp superconductivity!
Bookmark
They only cool nanodrinks.
And you need 1,293,284,483 nanococktails to get drunk.
I would make her head explode.
Steve Martin touched upon “getting small...I mean REALLY small” in the late 70’s.
They swoll up and got stuck.
Bookmark.
It’s a Small World After All.
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