Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

what types of covers work the best in snap freezing? I am a 7th grade student working on a snap freezing project and I want to make my project the best it could be by adding extra things. so if anyone could help me, please, help me!

Hi Al3x17,

This sounds like an interesting project. Are you working on the Supercooling Water and Snap Freezing project?

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... eityourown

If not, please provide more detail on your initial protocol and hypothesis.

-Dr. Payne

I am working on the super cooling and snap freezing project. To do the project, I will put water in a cup with some kind of cover over the cup. Then, I will put it in a bowl with ice around the cup and wait 30 minutes. I will do that three times with different types of water (dirty, spring, salty, and bottled water,ETC). I will also record all of the results. My hypothesis is that bottled water will freeze when I snap freeze it. I got this project idea from the science buddies project idea link I was given. plus, the project I am doing was at an intermediate level, there was no possibility of danger, and it required projects that I have access to at my house.

-al3x17

Ah, okay... The type of cover over your water should not impact snap freezing. Unless it's really dirty or dusty... The process of snap freezing is crystallization. The crystal will grow around a solid or seed crystal in a process called nucleation. You can introduce a seed crystal by dropping a piece of ice in or you can introduce a solid (like dust, dirt, or pretty much any solid). Nucleation can also start from within the container itself if there are rough spots that a crystal can form around.

You can modify your experiment from the Science Buddies version by using a solid other than ice to serve as the nucleus for crystallization, or you could continue to use ice but change the type of water (different types of bottled water, tap water, distilled, etc.) to observe the impact on the ability to snap freeze. Just be sure to only change one variable at a time...

Here are a couple of good descriptions of snap freezing and what is happening during the process:

https://www.coolscience.org/cool-chemis ... oled-water
https://www.education.com/science-fair/ ... oled-wate/

Good luck!
Dr. Payne

Thank you so much for helping me! I really appreciate you deciding to help me. now, I am almost done with my project and will probably be done by the time you read this. the main reason why is because I was rushed and only had the first semester to do this usual-half-a-year-paced project in two weeks. But thank you once more for helping me. I hope you are well remembered in history!