what's really interesting is that because of the viscosity and the higher vapor point, gelled ethyl alcohol is a better coolant than liquid nitrogen, even though LN2 is lower temp.
I expected it to behave more like water - not very viscous right before its freezing point, then suddenly hard as it freezes. ...Jello shots, anyone? =p
I'm no scientist, but I think that's because there's a little bit of water in it. Adding more water lets the liquid go viscous at higher temperatures, put a bottle of 40% vodka in the freezer at -20 celsius and it goes viscous too after a while
Just FYI, liquids like ethanol or acetone chilled at such low temperatures are far more dangerous than liquid nitrogen: because there's no leidenfrost effect to protect you, these give instant cold burns. I know this because I almost froze off two of my fingers with acetone & dry ice. (It spilled off the side of a dewar I was holding on my hand. It took me like 1 or 2 seconds to put down the dewar. When I looked at my fingers, they were white like paper, probably from my epiderm freezing. I put them under water to warm them up, they instantly regained their normal pink color, but the edge of the affected area really hurt, while I had lost all sense of touch in the fingers themselves. Then they got a bit swollen for a few days, and a little less than a week later I had fully regained my sense of touch. But it was the scariest lab mishap that ever happened to me, I can only wonder what would have happened if I had taken any longer to put the overflowing dewar down.)
Not at all! The Leidenfrost effect is a matter of boiling point. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of -196°C. So when you put your 37°C hand in there, it instantly vaporizes, forming a protective gas cushion, hence the leidenfrost effect. Ethanol has a boiling point is of +78°C, so your hand will never cause it to vaporize on contact. Thus, no leidenfrost effect, the -114°C liquid gets in direct contact with your skin, and instantly freezes its surface. (Now you do get some strong boiling when you put something warm in a dry ice - acetone bath. That is due to CO2 from the dry ice, which is very soluble in the acetone at those low temperatures, but goes back into the gas phase as soon as it warms up. I guess it does offer some protection compared to, say, the frozen ethanol shown above. But as evidenced by my story, it is still far worse than liquid nitrogen, as it is not a "true" leidenfrost effect.)
Yeah, it's the same alcohol found in beverages but this stuff is pure. This would make it around 2.5 times more potent than vodka. This stuff would probably taste terrible and it would get you drunk insanely quick. A few sips of this and you'd probably be vomiting.
I find it fascinating how the fact that it's almost pure alcohol makes it require temperatures of around -200ºc to (not quite) freeze; even when it does freeze it almost instantly defrosts after being removed from the LN.
It would be cool to see measured temperatures during your experiments for some of your videos, especially like this one. Being able to see the temperature at which the alcohol started to crystalize in the bowl would have been "cool" (heh, pun intended). I recommend using small thermocouple wire and a meter. It would minimize thermal mass (again especially for cold experiments), and you could make multiple types of thermocouples for different temp ranges, not to mention the benefit of replaceable temperature "probes" when they get damaged. I don't know what your budget is, but I think it would be a very interesting addition to these already pretty awesome videos.
I can't even imagine how utterly agonizing it would be to drink that pre-frozen goo. What would it feel like to get frostbite in your esophagus? It'd be like drinking molten lead but on the other end of the spectrum
it sinks! www.quora.com/Is-the-ice-of-ethyl-alcohol-heavier-than-liquid-ethyl-alcohol, it would have been nice to see that but i guess its quite difficult to play with frozen ethanol at that temperatures :)
Any chemistry or physics buffs care to explain the odd behavior of ethyl alcohol at lower temperatures? It's so strange that it reaches a certain viscosity before undergoing nucleation and forming a solid
I think alcohol behaves more like most liquids would under similar circumstances. Oil, fats, molten metals, minerals and glass all do roughly this same kind of behaviour. The problem is that our day to day experience is mostly of water and water based solutions, and water's behaviour (staying roughly the same viscosity until it freezes, freezing into a lower density solid, etc.) is weird.
Got to ask anyone in the USA, how big is that bottle of Alcohol and how much does it cost on average? I'm guessing it's about a litre (35 oz) and costs maybe a few dollars?
That will get you only so far then it makes an azeotrope. They used to make liquor from that called "apple jack" and "jacking" is the exact process you described though it doesn't take LN2 temps to do so, your freezer will work fine. You can use that technique to turn wine into higher proof liquor.
The only way to concentrate pure alcohol would be through distillation, which is a dangerous and arduous process, if you're wanting to get drunk there's safer ways to make liquor, make beer or mead. If you insist on it there's kits and supplies to make your own alcohol distillery but be advised that you need to follow the very strict and scritinous atf guidelines of home alcohol distillation. like you can only produce so much a month, and only use it for personal consumption, and it you wish to sell it you must get a manufacturer and distributors license. Or just say fuck all that and be a modern hillbilly moonshiner
@@the_weezman: You cannot achieve pure alcohol by classic destillation. That can at best give you around 96% alcohol. To get pure alcohol, you need to use filtering. But if by "pure alcohol", you mean spirits for human consumption, then that is simple to do by freezing.
ok ok I don't understand the name of this channel... is it Car Sand Water? or Cars and Water? Honestly im not sure and I have subbed for a few months although it dosnt effect in any way it would be nice to know.
alcohol is naturally an easily vaporizing substance just being left out in normal environment. cooling it to such low temperatures condenses the molecular structure until it can possibly freeze. which is why it got more viscous.
Weird. It's much more like cooling molten sugar back into a solid than like freezing water. How weird would it be if water got thick before it froze? Bizarre.
