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How To Make Instant Hot Ice

John P.

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Hot Liquid IceWow, this video is incredible. Perhaps we’ve got some chemist in the OMB readership who will care to explain exactly how the heck this works!

This video demonstrates how to make a liquid that turns to ice at the touch of a finger. Must be one of the strangest reactions I’ve ever seen.

It looks like the only real ingredient needed other than water is Sodium Acetate.

Comments

  1. Hey guys, I’m working on this lab report currently, anyone who is still confused please read on:
    PREPARATION OF UNSATURATED SATURATED AND SUPERSATURATED SOLUTIONS:
    1) Place approx one pipette full of distiller water into small CLEAN test tube (unsaturated solution)
    2) Using the metal scupula, add sodium acetate (the solute) to the solvent until no more solute will dissolve. (saturated solution)
    3) Place test tube into a beaker filled with 150ml tap water.
    4) Heat with Bunsen burner but don’t let the solution boil.
    5) Cool test tube in a beaker filled with cold water for about 2min. (supersaturated solution)
    6) Using tweezers, gently drop ONE SINGLE CRYSTAL OF SODIUM ACETATE into this solution.
    This will begin the spontaneous crystallization. CAREFUL THE TEST TUBE WILL FEEL HOT. (Heat pack)

  2. Man thanks I found a experiment 4 my exibition hopes it wins first place

  5. what is happening here is that the sodium acetate is super saturated so when the water cools it wont crystalise. when you touch it your finger is acting like a catalist and is allowing the crystals to form

  6. Supersaturation leads to an exothermic crystallization of the sodium acetate (aka, it’s not the water that crystallizes or “freezes”)

  8. hey me and my friend want to do this for our sciecne project but how do u do it have any specific directions?

  9. IM DOING THIS PROJECT AND I READ YOUR COMMET AND I THINK YOU GOTTA PUT IT IN THE FREDJE FOR AWHILE SO IT TO COOL AND WHEN YOU MIX THE ACETATE WIT THE WATTER YOU GOT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE WATER IS NEAR BIOLED

  10. Jeff–what chemical principles are demonstrated in this experiment? crystallization? nucleation? help??

  11. JEFF
    Thanks for your advice, you have been the only person I have found (and I searched everywhere) who could explain how to do this. Thanks again

    Oh and you lot really should read all the posts by Jeff if you want to know how to do it properly

  14. Hi there: HOT ICE …………..

    My daughter and I just got the sodium acetate today. We put some in near boiling water and stired alot. Put it in fridge to cool – tried it – it did’nt work.

    Did it a second time – its in the fridge now.

    Her science fair is due in 3 days! I only bought 500 grams and its going fast!!!

    Please e-mail me if you have made it successfully – with exact instructions please help.

    Running out of time and sodium acetate!

    Thanks

  15. I have tried this exp ALL Day and it’s not working. I have the sodium acetate and used tap water boiled a lot of the sodium into the water oured into a flask, cooled and poured into a dish…Nothing happened! Could you PLEASE help. I can;t find any exact directions.

  16. Oops. Double post.

    And read ALL the comments before you ask a question that has already been answered!

  17. Before you ask any more questions why don’t you read all the posts? I’ll bet your question has already been answered.

    Temperature: It will work at room temperature or lower (but as it gets colder there’s a greater chance that it will spontaneously crystallize.)

    Suppliers: As has been mentioned by previous posters you can find sodium acetate already pre-mixed in the right proportion with water (very little water, actually) as heat packs. It took about 5 seconds on Google to find these online suppliers (I Googled “heat pack”):

    http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Reusable-Pack-Heating-Packs/dp/B000F3Q524
    http://www.9thtee.com/reheater.htm

    I’m trying to reason out how snapping the metal disc starts the crystallization. My current theory is that the shockwave aligns the acetate ions which starts the ball rolling. (Non-spherical particles suspended in a fluid will align during any shearing flow. This is sickeningly close to work I did for my Master’s thesis. Don’t ask.) Anyone else have any ideas?

  18. hello teacher i am from chihuahua mexico i want to know how many water do u use for the experiment and how many sodium acetate do u use.
    and what temperature its when you start and what temperature do u put when u are stiring.
    and how many time do u need fridge the water with the solution
    because u try alot i cant make the ice can you help me pleace
    my msn is danyboy_bt@hotmail.com thanks

  19. I just fould out about this and it looks fun, but i can t find any sodium acetate. can some one tell me were too look other than Ebay.

    when freezing it does it have to be at a sorten Temp befor i take it out??

    • This is fun, I bought sodium acetate trihydrate at one of my pharmacy’s. Using sodium acetate trihydrate is the easiest way to make “Hot Ice”

  21. omg i have a project due with a partner and she wanted to this.. i couldnt find any info just videos the comments helped alot thnxx

  23. Whoops, that should have been NaH3CCO2. What was I thinking?

    I also forgot to mention, sodium acetate is a hydrate (which means that the crystals already contain a fair amount of water). This is why you don’t need to add much water to get it to dissolve.

    You can also make your own NaCH3COO (get used to different nomenclature!) It is the result of the well-known “kitchen” reaction of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3) with vinegar (acetic acid, CH3COOH). You have to use distilled vinegar–no balsamic here! Use excess baking soda to react all the vinegar, filter out the unreacted baking soda, then boil the solution to drive off as much water as possible. Remember, you won’t see the crystals until it cools.

  24. Chemistry Teacher here again.

    Distilled or deionized water would be best but you can do it with any filtered or bottled water. The main idea is that there can’t be any “junk” floating around that could start the crystallization process before you want it to happen. Clean, well-scrubbed glassware is also a must for the same reason. Make a bunch of small samples because one or two may crystallize on their own no matter what.

    I start by filling a few small test tubes with the NaH3CCHO then adding just a few drops of water to each (that’s all it takes). Heat them up in a hot water bath and stir each with a glass rod. When entirely dissolved, take them out and let cool to room temperature (NO FRIDGE NECESSARY!)

    As long as no dirt gets in you can use the same samples over and over. Just reheat. Good Luck.

  26. im in the 8th grade and i am doing this experiment for my science fair proj. Is there anything specific with like the water or anything? Can it just come from the sink or does it need to be soemhting different? and how long would i need to put it in the fridge to cool?

  27. Sooo…. this is really cool but make sure you do it right or it won’t work….. my friend tried doing it and it didn’t work because she didn’t sterre it all the time

    HAVE FUN! TRY IT!

  29. Forgot to mention: a very supersaturated solution might crystallize on the metal pans all by itself. But you could easily force this to happen by placing a small “seed” crystal on the pan and then pouring the solution on top of it. It would be guaranteed to start the crystallization process.

  30. Chemistry teacher here. I’ve done this demo in class for more years than I care to remember.

    Chris R.’s explanation above is absolutely correct. Good on ya’ for paying attention in class! Sodium acetate supersaturates very easily because the acetate ion has a very “diffuse” charge when dissolved in water (it doesn’t have one particular “sticky” spot to strongly attract the positive sodium ion.)

    You can make rock candy (large sugar crystals) the same way (but it doesn’t crystallize as quickly.) Dissolve as much sugar as possible in boiling water then let it cool slowly in a **clean glass** container. Then dangle a string in to provide a nucleation site.

  31. Coolio!!!!!!!!!!! Im a 5th grader and thats what i’m gonna do for my science project so i guess ill give it a shot

  32. Yep, I read about this process a while back after seeing this video and a couple other “insta-freeze” ones somewhere. The whole instant crystallization process is awesome.. definitely makes for a fun chemistry experiment :)

  35. Cool, it looks a bit like wax. I’ve always wondered what those multi-use bags contain that warm up when you bend them, now I know :)

  37. It’s the same principle that is used to create rock candy- the sodium acetate has a much lower melting point than you’d expect (around 60 C), so when it is heated in the water, the solid you see turns to a liquid that ‘blends’ into the water.

    On top of this, at a high temperature water can hold much more solute than at lower temperatures, but when you lower the temperature, that solute doesn’t just precipitate out right away, you get a supersaturated solution.

    By touching it, he provided a nucleus for solid crystals to start forming, then after that it was just a self-sustaining reaction. I suspect that it froze on the metal pan and not when it was poured into the plastic because:

    1. it was being poured from a greater height, disturbing the solution more
    2. metal is probably a better nucleus for solidification than plastic.

    If I got this wrong, chemists, please feel free to beat me with a large stick :)

  38. Very cool :)

    I’m going to give it a try too

    I think they had touched the pans first to get some of the oil’s on it, that’s why it started to turn as they poured.

  39. Dude! That is so cool! I’d love to do that at home with my kids.

    Why is it freezing in the metal pan, but, not the plastic one …until you touch it, that is? The kids would love the plastic one, so they could touch it and cause it to freeze.