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Chemistry / Re: Ice reaction to a specific unknown metal/alloy
« on: 08/11/2019 03:08:49 »As far as I understand it (and I'm quite certain of this), it is impossible for a material to behave as you have described towards water ice at atmospheric pressure. The rate of sublimation of an ice cube cannot be enhanced so dramatically simply by contact with a material. The equilibrium between solid, gas, and liquid is not favorable, so adding a catalyst will not help. Also, if such a material were known, why wouldn't it be on the surface of every airplane--the time spent deicing commercial airliners has got to be worth vast sums of money to the airlines, so if there were a material that passively just vaporized all the ice it came into contact with, using only the surrounding environment's thermal energy to satisfy the (huge) enthalpy of sublimation.
Therefore, I think there is either some additional critical detail that you have omitted, or misremembered. Sorry to come across as condescending, but mistaking the identity of the ice appeared to me the most likely explanation. Maybe there was a vacuum chamber involved? Or a fast stream of dry air? Or maybe it wasn't subliming, and was in fact absorbed or wicked away by the cup? I don't know the answer, but happy to brainstorm possibilities...
To answer your question about why isn't it on planes and such, answer is simple.....good old fashion economic greed.
Hemp is far superior to cotton for textiles, but way back in the day the textile industry basically paid off governments to make hemp illegal to produce because they were making too much money with cotton. So its simple, why release something that would then force multi-million dollar industries out of business?
You are right you do come across as condescending, even more so because you refuse to believe that I am telling the absolute truth, and ignoring the fact I have stated multiple times that it WAS NOT DRY ICE that was used, regular normal tap water ice cubes!!! I know the difference between the two and at first like yourself I did not believe what I saw and thought it was some sort of trick being played. The only thing I have omitted, is simply the makers name of these cups. All I remember pertaining to him was that he was a famous well known stein maker back in the day.
I personally have an issue recalling names of people, but when it comes to everything else my memory recollection is to say the least very eerily scary at what I can remember. Even the tellers at my bank freak out when I do in-person transactions because I have a 12 digit pin on my card, and they never see someone with such a long pin as mine. So please do not question my ability to provide/recall information.
Just because we cannot explain something because of our limited knowledge, does not make what someone claims to be true invalid, it just simply means its science that has yet to be solved. Look even 1000 years ago people the world was flat, but we know nowadays that is untrue, but back then if you would have said the earth was round, you would've been called crazy. Magic is simply science that has yet to be explained!
Another great example of how we as a whole do not know as much as we would like to believe we do is the Pyramids at Giza. Even with all our technology we cannot replicate them, let alone build them to last for thousands of years like the ancient Egyptians did. But yet we know it can be done, we see the results every time a photo of them is shown, but we do not understand how they did it, nor can we replicate it.
The metals used cannot be absorbing the melted ice water like you claim because if that was the case when you did add your drink into the cup your drink would start to disappear as well on you and in those cups they held liquid perfectly.
As I have stated I have done my due diligence before seeking outside help on the matter, I do not like my time wasted so why would I do it to someone else for? I'm a pretty smart and very handy guy, but even I cannot think of how what I witnessed is possible, I just know that it is possible. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would call BS on it just like you are, but I did witness it and I made damn sure it wasn't some trick being played on me.
The only part I left out was the sake the owner of those two cups even allowed me to do a control experiment, we took two ice cubes out of the same tray, one went into the "magic" cup, and one into a regular bowl, the one in the regular bowl acted like any regular melting piece of ice would, the ice slowly but surely melted from a solid into a liquid, and the other ice cube in the "magic" cup vanished long before liquid water even started to form in the bowl of the control.
Now I do not see how me explaining how I determined it was not some simple dry ice trick benefits the progression of this topic, I would have thought saying I know the difference between dry ice and regular ice would be enough but clearly it is not.
So do you still not believe what I claim is true?? As I said maybe saying the ice "sublimated" isn't the right termology to use but it is the only term that makes any applicable sense since that is exactly what happened to the ice, it went straight from a solid to a gas state.
So how about we try and brainstorm some metal combinations that could possible explain this? We know that certain metals have an exothermic reaction to water, but do they also react to solid water (ice) in the same fashion?
What metals have an endothermic reaction to water?
Is it potentially possible that maybe an endothermic reaction basically caused the ice to evaporate? Think kind of how ice eventually disappear while it is always in a freezer, but just drastically sped up.
I know I read somewhere a long while ago that one theory of ice is that it never is truly a full solid state, that in fact the very very top layer tends to remain a liquid and this is why ice is so slippery as that minuscule layer of water is what prevents frictional cohesion between an object and the ice. I don't know if it does or doesn't apply to this in any way, I am simply throwing ideas out there in hopes it helps trigger someones idea on how this all is even possible.
I do really believe sublimation is the proper term though because there was a heavy dense fog leftover after the ice 'disappeared'. But again I will state IT WAS NOT DRY ICE! otherwise my control would have sublimated as well, but it melted like normal ice would. So the key is whatever metal/metals/alloy are in those cups!