Does Carbonated Water Make Clearer Ice than Still Water?
October 23, 2009
This is another in my ongoing experiments to make clear ice. So far, I've tried comparing:
Someone in the comments mentioned hearing that carbonated water would freeze more clearly than still water. As most of the cloudiness in ice appears to come from trapped oxygen, this didn't make sense to me, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try.
I froze equal amounts of still water and carbonated water and this is how they came out:
The carbonated water is on the right, and it sure as heck isn't clear. It's got kind of a fun texture with lots of air bubbles in it, but that doesn't get us anywhere for the purposes of this experiment.
Conclusion: Carbonated water does not make clearer ice than still water.
An index of ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
Does the carbonated ice release co2 as it melts?
Posted by: Erik | October 27, 2009 at 12:28 AM
It was sort of crack, snapple, pop but I didn't dunk it in water to notice if it was actually fizzing. That would be sort of cool...
Posted by: Camper English | October 27, 2009 at 08:56 AM
It seems like you are on the right track but headed in the opposite direction. As the ice freezes the dissolved gases becomes less soluble. If the freezing is fast then the ice forms on the outside trapping the gas as it comes out of the water. The reason why frozen still water has less trapped air compared to frozen carbonated water is because it has less dissolved gas initially.
If the freezing is very slow then the air can diffuse out (diffusion is a slow process). If you can agitate the water as it freezes then you effectively speed up the diffusion process. You could also try putting the water under a vacuum (for example in a vacuum food container) when near freezing to reduce the dissolved gas concentration before the water freezes?
Posted by: Tony | October 27, 2009 at 07:01 PM
I would think that the water would be clearer because all the gas would release as it froze.. But apparently that is not the case! I wish I could help you on your journey to clear ice.. Maybe salty water?
-Molly
Antique Jewelry
Posted by: Molly | November 09, 2010 at 08:22 AM