Monday, July 11, 2011

Chemists Discover Freezing Point of Supercooled Water - Technology Review

Chemists Discover Freezing Point of Supercooled Water - Technology Review: Moore and Molinero get around this problem by simulating the freezing behaviour of over 250,000 water molecules on a computer. What they find is that once the natural process of ice formation begins to occur, then water cannot stay liquid at much lower temperatures...
There is an important caveat, however. The simulations require a major correction before they produce a physically realistic result. For some reason, they suggest that the natural ice formation begins to occur at about -71 C and that supercooled water freezes at about -73 C.
That's 30 degrees lower than in the real world. To get around this, Moore and Molinero simply add 30 degrees to all their results. Just why the simulation is out by so much isn't clear.

No comments:

Post a Comment