01 December 2016

Water can freeze at 100 degrees Celsius


If it's inside a carbon nanotube:
"... a team at 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.

The discovery illustrates how even very familiar materials can drastically change their behavior when trapped inside structures measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. And the finding might lead to new applications — such as, essentially, ice-filled wires — that take advantage of the unique electrical and thermal properties of ice while remaining stable at room temperature.
Abstract at Nature Nanotechnology.  Discussion thread at the New Reddit Journal of Science.

3 comments:

  1. Amazing stuff, future technology will be interesting to say the least. Would be incredible to have this at room temperature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLs2LxdokY

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  2. Oh, water can freeze solid at much higher temperatures than that. Here is a phase diagram of water. For instance you can see at 10 Giga-pascals of pressure and 250C you still have nice solid Ice-7.

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