The crystallization process gives off heat, so the hot ice is hot to the touch! Not hot enough to burn, though. We didn’t do that step, and it turned out fine. The directions on Instructables said to filter the solution to get rid of any impurities that might inhibit the crystallization process. This gave the sodium acetate the push it needed to crystallize! For example, copper remains a solid until it reaches 1,984 degrees Fahrenheit!īack to the sodium acetate… The crystals in the tray provided a starting point for crystals to grow in the solution, called a nucleation site. This word for this is supercooled.īy the way, we think of melting and freezing points mainly in reference to water, but all substances have a melting/freezing point. When we cooled the solution, we were able to bring the sodium acetate down to a temperature lower than the point at which it would normally become a solid. Well, crystals may start to form, but as a few molecules join together, the water molecules pull them apart again. The water molecules keep the sodium acetate from forming crystals. We reduced the amount of water in the solution by boiling it, but there is still water in there. The sodium acetate solution contains water. We didn’t get a chance to measure our final tower, but it was impressive! It was so fun to watch! By the end, Aidan was pouring just a drop at a time, and we could actually watch each drop piling up on top of the tower of hot ice. If you pour too quickly, the crystals will spread out horizontally. The first little bit took a few seconds to crystallize… but it DID!
Then Aidan poured the solution very slowly onto the crystals. I scraped off some crystals from the bottom of the pan and put them in a plastic tray. Step 4: Pour the cooled solution onto a few crystals that you scraped from the pan. This time, I put the solution in the freezer for about 20 minutes. After about 10 more minutes of boiling, there still weren’t any crystals on the edges of the pan, but I decided that the solution was reduced down so far that we just had to stop.Īs soon as I poured the solution out of the pan and into a glass jar, the remaining liquid in the bottom of the pan crystallized instantly! So I knew we were getting somewhere! And we had never seen any crystals form in the pan.
I decided to boil it a little more – maybe it wasn’t concentrated enough. Still nothing.īut, this experiment is very forgiving! I left the solution on the counter and came back to it the next day. We tried putting it in the refrigerator for awhile longer. We poured the solution over the pan scrapings, and nothing happened. We did this, and while it was in the refrigerator, I scraped some of the dried solution off the sides of the pot, hoping that it would work as the crystals needed to start the reaction. Step 3: Pour your sodium acetate into a glass container and put it in the refrigerator for 30 to 45 minutes. When it was down to 3/4 cup, I finally stopped boiling it. Well, our solution never formed crystals while it was cooking. This is important because you’ll need a few crystals as “seeds” to start the crystallization process. Now, the stuff I read online said that crystals would start to form around the edge of the pan. You want to reduce it down to 1 cup or less. Step 2: You have now made sodium acetate! (As well as carbon dioxide – it was given off in the reaction, which created all that fizzing.) You’ll need to boil the solution, though, to reduce the amount of water so that it is concentrated enough to form crystals.Ĭook your solution over low to medium heat for about an hour. Janie and Jonathan were quite impressed with this step. Add the baking soda a little at a time so that when it fizzes it won’t overflow over the edges of your pot! I decided to use the amounts given on Playdough to Plato. Before we did this experiment, I read instructions for hot ice on a few different websites. Step 1: Combine 4 cups of vinegar and 4 tablespoons of baking soda in a pot. You’ll need a couple of hours, though, so keep that in mind. Making hot ice is a simple process, and you probably have everything you need on hand. Since the process of crystallization is exothermic, the “ice” that forms will be hot to the touch. Combine baking soda and vinegar to make sodium acetate, or hot ice! It crystalizes instantly when you pour it, allowing you to create a tower of crystals. Here’s a fun science experiment that will definitely get a “wow” from the kids.
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