Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: neilep on 16/09/2012 12:31:46
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Hi All,
i'm sheepy ..how are ewe ?....enjoying the weekend ?...what ewe been up to ?
Good!..now that we're acquainted ewe get your people to ring my people and we'll all do lunch eh ?
Air !!...it's great isn't it ?...air is my all time favourite gassy atmospheric transparent thing that I luff to breathe. As ewe know, air was invented in 1972 and has become quite popular ever since !
Look, here's some :
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Air being all airy and cloudy earlier today
Nice eh ?
Say I took some air and squished it really hard !.......Could I squish it hard enough for air to become a solid ?...what would it look like ?...and how big would it be ?...eg:.....say a room 10 feet cubed...or if that is too small then100 foot cubed ! As ewe compressed the air in a room would anything in the room start to float at some point ?
whajafink ?
I respectfully request your kind consideration in this matter concerning air.
Hugs and shmishes
mwah mwah
Neil
xx
Air is the best and it makes me shout
Enabling my lungs to go in and out
It's such a delight to inhale such a thing
Bach wore a thong and stuck it on a G String *le groan*
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I think it is easier to freeze air to become a solid.
However, different components go through phase changes at different temperatures, so one might get some unique crystals of the different components of air,
Water, CO2, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and other stuff.
As density is also generally related to phase (except for water), it may also tend to stratify different layers of the solid output by element/compound.
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You can't turn gases solid by compression if they're above their critical temperature.
So far as I am aware, all the components of air are supercritical, so I think that the answer is no, at least this side of neutron star pressures.
At neutron star pressures, I believe you do get a solid, but doing so is 'significantly beyond the state of the art'. So no, you couldn't do it.
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When you look at the phase chart for Oxygen (for example), there many different "solid" forms.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esrf.eu%2FUsersAndScience%2FPublications%2FHighlights%2F2009%2FIMAGES%2Ffigure-8.jpg&hash=98224d696b5aa34e7b5723f8f0dcf8c8)
http://www.esrf.eu/UsersAndScience/Publications/Highlights/2009/dynextr/dyn04
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Oxygen
http://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1797
With the Greek letters on the diagram indicating different solid forms of Oxygen. 300K would be a good room temperature.
And, these diagrams were created on Earth.
A Gigapascal is about 72 tons per square inch. Not something you would want to be pressing on your big toe, but still technically achievable in the laboratory setting.
Water is somewhat unique with its phase diagram in that at low pressures, the higher the pressure, the lower the melting/freezing point (more liquid phase). But, even with water, there are several high temperature/pressure solid forms.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fergodic.ugr.es%2Ftermo%2Flecciones%2Fphase.gif&hash=094b2860f8a7903d409d484c01e4f2cb)
http://ergodic.ugr.es/termo/lecciones/water1.html
Most other compounds and elements have lower density liquids than solids, and thus a tendency for the higher the pressure, the higher the melting/freezing point. I.E. more solid at warmer temperatures.
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I stand seriously corrected!