Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Ultima on 14/01/2006 23:49:47
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I went and got a can of beer I had left in the ice box to get cold quickly.... However this was about 4 hours after I put it in fridge. It was frozen solid [:I]. I stupidly opened it finding it was impossible to get out of the can.
Then about 5 minutes later I noticed my hand was getting wet! The gas was forcing all the melted beer out of the can but most of it was still frozen solid! What on earth is going on? It doesn't stop either it just keeps on flying out as I drink it from the top. IS there something I need to know about gasses dissolved in liquids and what happens when they are frozen. Can someone please explain this to me, since I freeze my beer quite often by mistake and it would be nice if I could avoid the mess![:D]
One thing I did notice is that the ice is sort of spongy at the top when all the liquid started coming out?!
wOw the world spins?
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quote:
Originally posted by Ultima
I went and got a can of beer I had left in the ice box to get cold quickly.... However this was about 4 hours after I put it in fridge. It was frozen solid [:I]. I stupidly opened it finding it was impossible to get out of the can.
Then about 5 minutes later I noticed my hand was getting wet! The gas was forcing all the melted beer out of the can but most of it was still frozen solid! What on earth is going on? It doesn't stop either it just keeps on flying out as I drink it from the top. IS there something I need to know about gasses dissolved in liquids and what happens when they are frozen. Can someone please explain this to me, since I freeze my beer quite often by mistake and it would be nice if I could avoid the mess![:D]
One thing I did notice is that the ice is sort of spongy at the top when all the liquid started coming out?!
wOw the world spins?
The amount of gas that dissolves in a liquid varies with temperature. Generally, warm water will dissolve more gas than cold water, and ice will dissolve very little. Thus, as you cool water, more gas will come out of sollution.
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Actually cold water will dissolve more gas than hot water, but ice will dissolve very little inless the gas molecules somehow didn't disrupt the crystal structure. This is why cold drinks will retain their fizz and why if you heat water all the dissolved gasses will form little bubbles before it actually boils, as they come out of solution.
If you think about it, it makes sense. The hotter the gas is the more they are going to be able to break free of the liquid - or if you know any thermodynamics more entropy is released by something forming a gas at high temperatures than low.
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About the can itself - which way up was the can when you froze it? if it has frozen most of the dissolved CO2 will have come out of solution and be pushing very hard on the beer. If it was the right way up this would probably cause it to go flat very quickly, if it was upside down then it would cause it to work like an aerosol can.
The other effect will be that if you have a mixture of ice and water in their the ice crystals will act as nuceleation sites for bubbles - bubbles often need somewhere to start forming which is why if you put a spoonful of coke in someone's coke it goes crazy. So your beer could just be turning into a foam very efficiently.
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The can was frozen on its side, and then I put it upright and opened it. For a while it was fine then very suddenly it irrupted. All of these arguments sound good [:D] thanks.
The odd thing was that it still remained "whole" it hadn't broken up into little bits of ice or slush.