Make Hot Ice at Home

Practical Guide for Making Hot Ice at Home

Not only that hot ice exists, but even you can make it



Hot ice


Sodium acetate trihydrate crystals
dissolved in hot water and cooled off stay liquid until the
solidification process is triggered with one's finger. The exothermic
ice thus obtained emanates heat.




I bet that when winter comes and you go ice skating, upon warming up
your frozen fingers many of you think "What if ice were warm?" Well, believe it or not, it is possible, though not in the way
you might have imagined. In order to see for yourselves what hot ice
would look like, here comes an easy guide, so that you can prepare it
yourselves.




Get in possession of some sodium acetate (heating pads
or hand warmers contain such a substance). Any form will do, both the
gel from the warming pad or the more common powder. The first step is
to dissolve as much of it as you can (a cupful is good for starters)
into almost boiling water. First place
the acetate into a pan and then add just enough water until it
dissolves. Be careful not to add too much water, because you want to
supersaturate the solution and make it as dense as possible for the
best results.




Then heat the pan and stir until the water is close to boiling. This is actually when the sodium acetate crystals
dissolve, reaching liquid form. What you need to do is add acetate
until the mixture can hold no more, which you'll know by noticing that crystals don't dissolve anymore, remaining instead on the bottom of the pan. If this doesn't happen, add more.




When this is done, transfer the solution into any container that can be
put in the fridge. Make sure that only the liquid goes into the
container and absolutely none of the undissolved crystals.
Keep those in the pan, otherwise it all goes wrong. Normally, at the
temperature in the fridge, which is way below the one the mixture is
formed at, the solution would crystallize again. But since you
supersaturated it, it "supercools" instead, reaching a temperature
below the normal crystallization one without doing so. After about an
hour, you can take it out of the fridge and, if you need to pour it
into a better container, this is your last chance. While doing so,
watch out not to spill any of it and make sure that it doesn't come
into any contact with solid sodium acetate.



The final step is to place a tiny bit of solid acetate on your finger
or any other object that holds it and shortly touch the mixture with
it. Be careful not to stick your finger for too long if you don't want
hot ice getting stuck to it. What happens now is that the solid crystal
triggers the solidification process as it creates a nucleation center.
Your solution should turn into an ice-looking one, and if you touch it,
you'll notice it's warm (54°C, 130°F), because crystal formation
releases energy.



Caution: don't eat the ice and, if you're not sure what to do, ask for supervision.