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A Liquid That Turns Solid When Heated
Roland Piquepaille writes "There are some sure things in life, such as death and taxes. When you are heating a solid, you expect it will melt and when you're boiling water, you're pretty certain that it will turn into vapor. But what about a liquid that becomes solid when it's heated? Of course, it has already been done, for example in the chemical process of polymerization. But now, PhysicsWeb writes that a team of French physicists has discovered a law-breaking liquid that defies the rules. When you heat it between 45 and 75C, it becomes solid. But the process is fully reversible, and this is a world's premiere. When you decrease the temperature, this solid melts and turns again into a liquid. I'm not sure of the implications of such a phenomenon, but it's fascinating. Read more for essential details."
This is one of the things that makes you think if everything is as you know...
The Matrix anyone?
Plazanet and colleagues prepared a liquid solution containing a-cyclodextrine (alpha-CD), water and 4-methylpyridine (4MP). Cyclodextrines are cyclic structures containing hydroxyl end groups that can form hydrogen bonds with either the 4MP or water molecules.
What I see:
And if you expect me to tell you how this discovery will modify our lives, you're going to be disappointed. I've not a slightest idea about it, even if I find fascinating that scientists always find new ways to break rules and shake our certitudes.
so what could the application of such a material be? a new breed of thermometers are on their way, i guarantee it.
thermometers for the 21st century and beyond.
I used to make some type of gelatin-glue out of liquid by heating it in high school.
In other news:
Cookie dough batter turns to solid in oven when heated. (Yeah, yeah, it's not reversible...)
No references to Ice nine?! I must be getting old.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Ice only turns into a solid when heated in Soviet Russia
That is pretty cool. Can someone explain the phrase 'sol-gel'? Does that mean that it become more like a gelatinous subject when heated instead of a more 'solid' solid?
It's been a long time since I've taken chem.
I think you need to think about what the words "increase" and "decrease" mean.
I just happened to boil the boneless skinless chicken tenders 10 minutes ago and they were soft and mushy before I boiled them but became much firmer/harder after boiling them.......
Fascinating stuff. This physics marvel of a liquid is a mixture of many separate elements... including milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and a pinch of salt.
With a futuristic power source, a 30 degree change can't be that much to ask.
There are some sure things in life, such as death and taxes. When you are heating a solid, you expect it will melt and when you're boiling water, you're pretty certain that it will turn into vapor. But what about a liquid that becomes solid when it's heated? Of course, it has already been done, for example in the chemical process of polymerization. But now, PhysicsWeb writes that a team of French physicists has discovered a law-breaking liquid that defies the rules. When you heat it between 45 and 75, it becomes solid. But the process is fully reversible, and this is a world's premiere. When you decrease the temperature, this solid melts and turns again into a liquid. I'm not sure of the implications of such a phenomenon, but it's fascinating. Read more...
Here is the summary from PhysicsWeb.
Physicists in France have discovered a liquid that "freezes" when it is heated. Marie Plazanet and colleagues at the Université Joseph Fourier and the Institut Laue-Langevin, both in Grenoble, found that a simple solution composed of two organic compounds becomes a solid when it is heated to temperatures between 45 and 75, and becomes a liquid when cooled again. The team says that hydrogen bonds are responsible for this novel behaviour.
Ready for the scientific details?
Plazanet and colleagues prepared a liquid solution containing a-cyclodextrine (alpha-CD), water and 4-methylpyridine (4MP). Cyclodextrines are cyclic structures containing hydroxyl end groups that can form hydrogen bonds with either the 4MP or water molecules.
At room temperature, up to 300 grams of alpha-CD can be dissolved in a litre of 4MP. The resulting solution is homogenous and transparent, but it becomes a milky-white solid when heated. The temperature at which it becomes a solid falls as the concentration of alpha-CD increases.
Neutron-scattering studies revealed that the solid phase is a "sol-gel" system in which the formation of hydrogen bonds between the alpha-CD and the 4MP leads to an ordered, rigid structure. At lower temperatures, however, the hydrogen bonds tend to break and reform within the alpha-CD, which results in the solution becoming a liquid again.
The research work has been published by The Journal of Chemical Physics in its September 15, 2004 issue under the name "Freezing on heating of liquid solutions." Here is a link to the abstract.
We report a reversible liquid-solid transition upon heating of a simple solution composed of a-cyclodextrine (alpha-CD), water, and 4-methylpyridine. These solutions are homogeneous and transparent at ambient temperature and solidify when heated to temperatures between 45 and 75. Quasielastic and elastic neutron scattering show that molecular motions are slowed down in the solid and that crystalline order is established. The solution "freezes on heating." This process is fully reversible, on cooling the solid melts. A rearrangement of hydrogen bonds is postulated to be responsible for the observed phenomenon.
If you are interested by the subject, visit a university library, or buy the article for $22.
And if you expect me to tell you how this discovery will modify our lives, you're going to be disappointed. I've not a slightest idea about it, even if I find fascinating that scientists always find new ways to break rules and shake our certitudes.
[Additional note for physicists: I've been forced to use the "alpha-CD" notation here, because neither my publishing software nor my browsers seem to be able to understand the correct notation, which is "CD."]
Sources: Belle Dumé, PhysicsWeb, September 24, 2004; The Journal of Chemical Physics, September 15, 2004, Volume 121, Issue 11, pp. 5031-5034 Netcraft confirms *BSD is dying. 6:25:24 PM Permalink Comments [0] Trackback [0] Technorati about this page and this post
The French have been freezing up when things get heated for years.
a bag of "Hot Cubes" to keep the coffee warm.
They have to be contrarians everywhere...
You're confusing expansion with turning solid. Water is one of the few (only?) substances that expands when it freezes.
So...if you were to put this in someone's bloodstream with the right concentration, you could cause it to solidify once it reached standard body temperature...
You know you've lost it when you begin signing physical documents with =^_^=
Hell has officially frozen over now.
I don't know much about physics, but could something like this be used as a heat shield of some kind? Like, where the shield is basically considered turned off when it is in the liquid state. Then when it hits a certain overload temperature, it turns to a solid and thus blocks (some of) the heat exchange?
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
" Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends" "How new technologies are modifying our way of life" "If you are interested by the subject, visit a university library, or buy the article for $22."
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Like, let's say, mud?
If it breaks the law, the law was wrong all along, right?
Why do I see a new line of sex toys being based on this?
;)
Or at least a splint that packs down small but that remains rigid when in contact with a warm body.
Um.. Maybe that would apply to a sex toy
Wherever You Go, There You Are
but it's cheaper to heat than to cool.
You could make a neat security system will only work when "heated" and solid otherwise it wont let you in.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I think I've been drinking this stuff out of the coffee pot in my office for several years now.
I'm laughing at clouds.
It's a solid at those temperatures, what is it at higher temps? Liquid again? Does it have two melting points? At what temp does it vaporize? Does it freeze at some point below the normal low-end melting point? At 0 degrees Kelvin, it's definitely a solid, somewhere above that, a liquid, then a solid again, then a liquid again, then a vapor? Maybe.
Get ready for the soon to be classic -cyclodextrine in the oilpan trick.
*Splort*
Isn't this how "The Andromeda Strain" did it's dastardly work? Turning the blood into a solid crystaline polymer?
I remember either Porsche or Volkswagen having a limited slip clutch that consisted of two perforated disks set next to each other in a container of special goo. If the wheels slipped it caused the disks to rotate at different speeds and the friction caused enough heat to turn the goo solid. I can't remember why they quit using it but it was more than a few years ago. I think it was going into their 4 wheel drive race cars. Just a memory though I got no hard data. Anyone know more about this?
Which law would this be? The one that says solids melt into liquids at higher temperatures? Oh wait, there is no such law - thanks to something called Sublimiation where solids go straight to a gas (like dry ice).
This is not an example of a new found element with impossible thermal properties. This is an example of materials and molecular chemistry in action. This works because it follows the laws of physics.
Reverse melting has been known for a long time.
People have been studying vortex systems that
do that. This is only new because it's a chemical
compound (rather than say electrons) that does this.
No physics breakthrough here. Maybe chemical
engineering breakthrough but that's it.
I wonder if it would be possible to change the temperature at which it re-liquifies, and if it becomes harder or more dense at higher temperatures. Seems like if that were the case, it would make for a good tiling material for the skin of a space shuttle
Now consider the following scenario. A raging fire occurs on the 70th floor. Normally, such a fire would threaten the top 30 floors if the fire were sufficiently hot. The top 30 floors could collapse into the 70th floor since the heat of the fire has weakened the supporting beams of the 70th floor.
With liquid-reinforced steel beams, they should retain their supporting strength. The top 30 floors would be safe.
If we had constructed the World Towers in New York City in this fashion, then they would not have collapsed on 2001 September 11.
Now I really want a Creme Brulee...
I vote for a new "Roland Piquepaille" section, he should get a good amount of advertisement revenue from his daily submits, always with "read more" links just quoting the original story.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Plazanet and colleagues prepared a liquid solution containing ?-cyclodextrine (?CD), water and 4-methylpyridine (4MP).
Is it edible?
Damn you hydrogen bonding, damn you shaking up our worlds with your heat freezing solids.
I sure hope it's non-conductive so I can put it as a coolant in my computer. Computer gets too hot, it turns solid and the computer "locks up". Ha!
Seriously though, if this stuff interacts well with other substances (i.e. doesn't explode, melt, send it to another dimension) then it could feasibly have applications where it would solidify around objects once they got too hot, thereby stopping their motion. And since the article says you can adjust the solidifying (freezing?) point based on its concentration, it could be tailor-made for different devices. This probably won't happen though because I'm guessing this stuff is probably expensive to make and does who-knows-what to human tissue
i hotdog.
...that gives me hope for a room temperature superconductor. Heating liquids into solids? Hey! You never know!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I wonder what the ballistic armor implications of this development are.
I can imagine liquid armor in some sort of gel packs. Normally it would allow free movement to the wearer - but it would instantly turn solid from the energy of the impact when a high-speed projectile (eg: a bullet) tries to penetrate it.
Interesting..
This article describes a similar material that is liquid below 20 C and solid above 32 C. Medical researchers hope to use it if they are able to perfect 3D printers that generate organs by spraying cells onto a substrate. The gel is used to reserve open spaces for blood vessels. Once the organ has been formed they cool it and the solid turns to liquid and runs out.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Placing the solid into my fridge, and again forgetting it for say, 2 or 3 weeks, reduces the solid back into a liquid.
Though I havn't personally tried it, I'm fairly certain that if I were to return the liquid back to the oven, and again properly forget about it, that I would again get a solid.
The rules of freezing, melting and vaporising (yes, I missed out sublimation) are not broken here. Chemists have known for some time that certain reactions can both only take place at a certain range of temperatures and reverse outside that range. This stuff does not freeze. It simply undergoes a reaction which bonds two types of molecule together to form a cohesive structure. The "normal" rules still apply to both compounds, but the new compound has a higher freezing point. That the reaction to form the new compound is reversible is also nothing new.
Analogy: Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius, sodium chloride (salt) much higher at 804 Celsius. Add the two together to form an aqueous solution of sodium chloride and it lowers the freezing temperature, contrary to the properties of both substances. Heat it, and evaporate the water off and you end up with solid NaCl.
Sorry, but this has been hyped beyond recognition.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Warning, this Roland fellow submits (and they get accepted!) stories all the time, which link to his personal blog site. All his posts have the same format. Stop feeding him page views!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
close.
several cars use a "viscous coupling" system, which is what you're thinking of. the use a system of disks that can rotate against eachother in a silicon fluid. when the disks shear fast enough, the friction heats the fluid. it then expands and the PRESURE locks the plates together.
This produces a limited slip differential that is very controllable and low on wear.
check out the system in a Mitsu 3000GT VR4 for more details.
But what about a liquid that becomes solid when it's heated?
hey!
that's me!!!
Hasn't Garnier Fructise been using this stuff for a while - the name certainly sounds french. the advertisements claim that "it strenghtens your hair by 4x." You'll be able to grease your hair with that stuff and hang weights from your hair, like superman does at some museum.
You already can.
Sort of.
Have you ever seen those little novelty square rocks for sale? Cutesy "on the rocks" rocks? You put them in the fridge and then use them in your drinks instead of ice. Actually quite practical since they don't water down your drink.
I don't see why you couldn't heat them up instead.
The way I see it, the Whigs were a political party and the rest of ya are a bunch of horny nerdy cheezy-mah-neasy, slimeballs.
We've been in the Matrix ya blind bats, and this is just another thing to show all you science-swearing penis whistlers that we don't know jack daniels about the world and all ya'll are a bunch of deer humping weenies with pocket protectors and tape on your glasses thinking you have it down pact.
A HEATED LIQUID CAN TURN INTO A SOLID....you hear me!? DO YOU hear me? Good, now go plant a seed in your bum and watch a tree sprout out from it and realize you don't know shit from the face you see in the mirror about the universe.
I don't give a hootin' sweet good feathery damn what sort of degree you have.
Now go burn in the pits of Gehenna.
One of the interesting things is that ice expands because of hydrogen bonding, similar to what is happening in the material in the article. What makes the rigid structure in ice is that the hydrogen bonds have a longer half-life in ice than in water.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
[Additional note for physicists: I've been forced to use the "alpha-CD" notation here, because neither my publishing software nor my browsers seem to be able to understand the correct notation, which is "CD."]
i've just checked on my Firefox, it works. Or is he using....oh,no!!!
With other submitters, Slashdot seems to moderate and even sometimes actually edit the submissions. It's like the Slashdot moderators get kickbacks for blog-hyping.. which wouldn't be so bad except most of his submissions are mediocre.
Erm, actually it begins to expand about 4 degrees C before it freezes. This allows the cold, almost frozen liquid to *rise* through the warmer water above, leaving it at the surface, where it will freeze.
If water did not have this peculiar feature, oceans would freeze from the bottom, never melt, and our little planet would be a dirty grey ice-ball, and not the lovely blue green water-world it is.
The last fucking thing you want is my undivided attention...
I remember reading somewhere about making a bullet proof suit for soldiers where the suit was in fact hollow and filled with a gel containing nanoparticles. This thing might help us make more efficient ones: when the bullet hits the gel, the pressure is going to make it increase in heat, isn't it? So as the bullet tries to penetrate, it's going to get harder and harder... thus absorbing a HUGE amount of energy. Once the bullet is fully stopped, the pressure disappears, the temperature goes back down to normal and you have a liquid armor again. One problem is keeping the liquid from spilling out of the holes the bullets make... But I'm quite confident that can be overcome with some brilliant imagination. Of course, the real problem is how breakable is the solid formed? Because if the bullet goes straight through the hard material, then there's not point. But I think that'd be one use of this...
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Too much Calvin & Hobbes, I suppose.
Replace the nails and screws in the furniture in a hot classroom from the solid form of this material. Then just wait for the instructor to enter the room and turn on the AC.
Room cools, everything falls apart.
I read somewhere that science can explain what happens when we boil stuff, *nearly* explain what happens when we fry stuff, and caramelisation is a complete mystery.
It doesn't break any law, it follows every law. Physics around phase-changes (liquid-solid, gas-liquid, gas-solid) can be really weird. Iodine sublimes (goes from solid crystal form to gas with no intermediate liquid form) for example, at least at STP.
:-)
:-))
It's almost certainly those pesky hydrogen bonds - they're responsible for just about everything interesting in organic chemistry... Strange how things ultimately come down to geometry
It is new and strange, but I'd be willing to bet just about anything that the physical laws of energy conservation, attraction and conversion are being rigorously adhered to
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Eggs?
You would think that such an experiment that there would be pictures to prove it. (Unless it was stated in TFA which I didn't really read because it was too technical) :(
My sig can beat up your sig
Yeah - Mix cake flour mix with water or milk. Put it in the oven at 400F for 30 mins - result is solid matter.
So what's new about that?
Funny thought, but it would have to be a really hot room - 45 to 75 degress celsius.
Dress loosely.
To a physicist the phase diagram is interesting, because the solid/gel must have a larger entropy than the corresponding liquid. (Remember that you calculate equilibrium by minimizing the Gibbs energy G = H - TS).
Anyway it has been known for many years that some triblock polymers form gels when heated, but perhaps the solid phase of this new liquid is "more solid". Perhaps the news is that the liquid has a larger enthalpy of melting. I don't know
After reading the article (the actual publication, that is), here's an attempt at a summary.
When you heat something, the entropy (disorder) of a system increases in importance. This is a law of thermodynamics.
A gas has greater entropy than a liquid, both have greater entropy than a solid. Usually.
Now, this substance turns solid when you heat it. -This means the solid phase has higher entropy than the liquid phase. That is unusual, but it doesn't violate any laws.
How does it work? Well, it appear the alpha-cyclodextrin molecule has two conformations (shapes). In the low-temperature one, it hydrogen-bonds to itself. At higher temperatures, these bonds are broken. (this is what happens with ice-water-steam too)
The funny thing about this substance, is that once these internal hydrogen bonds are broken, it allows the molecule to bind to other ones.. so while you break the "internal" hydrogen bonds, you give rise to a bunch of "external" molecular bonds, to other alpha-cyclodextrine molecules.
This leads to the formation of a solid. (not actually a true solid, but rather a 'sol', a suspension of linked-together alpha-Cyclodextrin molecules in water) And this solid actually does have lower entropy than the liquid phase, due to the breaking of the internal hydrogen-bonds.
No laws broken. Nothing 'impossible' going on. But, it is however an interesting phenomenon, and something which certainly may turn out to have practical uses in the future.
check the last paragraph
Shock absorbers. This stuff would make fantastic shock absorbers.
Reinforcement for solid structures. Somebody already mentioned skyscrapers, but I'm also envisoning other more improbable structures, like hurricaine proof buildings. Wind blows, soften up the beams and let her bend a bit. Wind stops, stiffen the supports back up.
Mecha. This has to be used in mecha. Beams that can bend a bit, be solid or fluid, would be excellent in 50 foot killer robots. You know it.
Tank armour. Make it solid and when stuff hits, it breaks. Change temperature, and it melts. Change temp again and it becomes solid again, with no signs of previous damage. Regenerating armour.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That one uses a pump. It's a viscous coupling, very common.
There are other systems that use ferrofluids. These turn solid when you put electricity through them.
Looks like they discovered a relatively simple chemical that exhibits the properties of protein chains, that is, it bonds in a water solution at a certain temperature using light hydrogen bonds. Depending on how long the chain is, I suppose this is either similar to folding or to the mechanism in protein binding sites.
This has to have some benefits in molecular biology, probably in protein folding research or new targeted medicines.
Hmm.... that site mentions that it's biodegradable. Does that mean that the bacteria will be able to degrade these "psuedo-organs" while they are in your body?
Hopefully with a piquepaille section, the kids around here can set their preferences and the rest of us won't be subjected to their endless childish comments every time one of Roland's stories are posted.
I don't see why you couldn't heat them up instead.
Because they explode.
Well,it's amazing, but it's not the first time i see it.
I work in molecular biology. Recently we started doing experiments with so-called Matrigel. This is purified extracellular matrix from mice tumours. It's a natural environment to grow endothelial cells and study the development of blood vessels. This is by no means a mysterious substance - thousand of labs buy it and use it every day.
Well, Matrigel works exactly the same way the substance in the article does. It is fluid around 0, but rapidly freezes at -20 and rapidly becomes solid at room temperature. And it is fully reversible. This also makes the substance a bitch to manipulate -you pick up with the pipette,and it becomes solid inside the pipette before you can transfer it!
Still, it is amazing to mimic such a behaviour in a simple solution instead than in the tremendous proteins-and-sugars mess that's Matrigel.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
The best option over the above (and a common upgrade) is the fully-mechanical "Torsen" ( torque-sensing ) differential.
Quaife makes one of these. An all-wheel drive car would need three, and at around $1k a pop they aren't exactly cheap, but they have a lifetime warranty.
You utter fools! This was the first step to the new Terminators. First Skynet, now the new T series. You fools!
Sounds like the french just discovered jello.
I was hoping something more interesting and subtle was going on. Of course, it will still liquify above 75 degrees or whatever the melting temperature is for the hydrogen-bonded network of the two compounds... Maybe you could make some kind of antilubricant out of a similar compound though: increase friction / viscocity as the temperature increases. Not sure what that might be useful for though - slowing down a flywheel when a machine starts to overheat?
That's one m^&$%rfuc&*&^%r son of a bitch bad ass water, man... WHat is it, water gone bad girl? CIA brainwashed water? Bad rebell ice? Oh man, what has the world become...
"Body heat activated - when the temperature rises, it fuses your arms to your sides so that you can't release any bad armpit smells"
OK, I'm just spitballing here.
Perfectly Normal Industries
. . . called eggs, over easy.
most things are invented and used in weapons first so....
heck of a projectile..
hardens upon firing... hits explodes then melts all over everything..
if it got in you skin (injected?) your body couldnt get rid of it..
maybe well see a wolverine soon!!! lol
mix it with titanium or other metal
hmmm
--molding the ultimate slug for coin-op vending machines.
If you can get the cost of the liquid below the value of a coin.
Why not make it have a use in vehicles, or pretty much any application. If a certain engine area or passenger compartment catches on fire or overheats, the liquid in a chamber or what have you, solidifies and blocks the spread of fire, or whatnot.
OK so i dont have the best idea but I Can see it getting used for safety features.
FACT: KARMA IS DYING
Liquid helium-3 (3He) displays similar properties. There is a minimum in its Pressure vs Temperature "melting" curve at 0.32 Kelvin and 29 atmospheres. If one cools a sample of the liquid to, say, 0.20 Kelvin and apply a pressure of 30 atmospheres, the sample would remain liquid. Heat it isobarically to 0.3 kelvin and the liquid will begin to solidify. This new substance is the SECOND liquid to display this property. You can look at the melting curve here:
http://boojum.hut.fi/research/theory/helium.html
oh oh Odo where'd you go? Think nano structures. think ds-9.
I tip toe like rats on vouge runnways.
BUT what if one heats it up to more then 75C? ... what happens then?!
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS VOLUME 121, NUMBER 11 15 SEPTEMBER 2004
.2 Since the scattering cross section of protons and deuterons differ considerably, neutron scattering has the advantage that isotopic hydrogen-deuterium replacement can be used as a contrast variation method to reveal the structure as well as the dynamics of different molecular components separately. Unless otherwise speci?ed, the concentration of the samples used in all these measurements was 200 g CD in 11 of 4MP, corresponding to a molecular ratio of 1/50 and a transition temperature of 64C. Quasielastic neutron scattering with instruments of different energy resolution IN5, IN10, IN16 probes the dynamics at different time scales. Indeed, the broadening of the energy distribution of scattered neutrons so-called quasielastic broadening is proportional to the rate of decay of the position-position correlation function of the scattering nuclei, while information about the geometry of the motions i
COMMUNICATIONS Freezing on heating of liquid solutions
We report a reversible liquid-solid transition upon heating of a simple solution composed of a-cyclodextrine CD , water, and 4-methylpyridine. These solutions are homogeneous and transparent at ambient temperature and solidify when heated to temperatures between 45 and 75. Quasielastic and elastic neutron scattering show that molecular motions are slowed down in the solid and that crystalline order is established. The solution ''freezes on heating.'' This process is fully reversible, on cooling the solid melts. A rearrangement of hydrogen bonds is postulated to be responsible for the observed phenomenon. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.1794652
The laws of thermodynamics impose that energy and entropy of any system increase with increasing temperature. As a consequence, solids generally melt, and the liquid ?nally vaporizes. Well-known exceptions are systems where heating leads to irreversible chemical changes, such as polymerization, for example. The reversible gelation of polymer solutions upon heating is also well known,1 but the observation, reported here, of a reversible liquid-solid transition upon heating of a liquid composed of relatively small and rigid molecules is highly unusual and unexpected at ?rst sight. This behavior is exhibited by liquid solutions composed of a-cyclodextrine CD , water, and 4-methypyridine 4MP with molar ratios in the range of 1:6: 30-100 , respectively. Cyclodextrines are the cyclic association 6, 7, or 8 glucose units -, -, and -cyclodextrines, see Fig. 1 , and form readily inclusion compounds with a wide variety of molecules. In preparing the inclusion complex of 4MP in CD, hydrated CD was dissolved in 4MP. At ambient temperature, up to 300 g/l of CD can be dissolved in 4MP, and the resulting solution is homogeneous and transparent. When this solution was heated it turned into a milky-white solid. Upon cooling back to ambient temperature, the original homogeneous solution was recovered after some time and the process could be repeated inde?nitely. The temperature at which the solution solidi?es decreases with increasing concentration of CD in 4MP see Fig. 2 . Commercial CD is always hydrated, and when a solution was prepared with CD dried in a desiccator under vacuum and 4MP dried over a molecular sieve, the resulting solution solidi?ed only partially and formed a slurry, while solutions, in which 1 g/l of water was added, completely solidi?ed. Photomicrographs of the solid phase see Fig. 2 inset show inhomogeneous structure, which explains the strong light scattering and milky aspect of the solid phase. Analogous observations of ''freezing on heating'' were made for other methyl-pyridines and pyridine as well as for other cyclodextrines, but a detailed characterization was made here only for the system of CD in 4MP as described below. In order to characterize the structure and molecular motions across the phase transition, neutron scattering experiments were performed at the Institute-Laue-Langevin ILL
Heat it beyond boiling and watch it irrevocably change to an inedible solid form.
Unless you know something the rest of us dont, the entire human body is "bio-degradable", and susceptable to all kinds of attack.
The fluid/solid they would use would just be to create spacers between actual cells. Think of it like polystyrene packing in a box. As your parent said, once the entire structure is built, they can reduce the temp and have it drain out.
liqbase
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Crap. No law of physics is broken by this behavior. It's interesting, unusual, possibly unprecedented, but it's not "law-breaking".
Peaple think of outer space as incredibly cold, but it can be hot too. This stuff could prove to be a lifesaver if kept in space shuttle hulls, imagine if you kept it in liquid form in a space shuttle during re-entry, and should you wind up with cracks and holes or whatnot it simply oozes out and gets heated up and solidifies. thereby saving the shuttle from near certain destruction. the same with deep space missions, any impact will likely produce enough heat to solidify the material, at least long enough for the crew to deal with the situation. it may be only for a few seconds, but that would probably be enough for them to snap on their helmets.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Doesn't sound very usefull at first but if you think about it the applications are endless.
I wonder if it acts as water turning to ice. Does it expand, get denser, or conducts heat/electicity/light better( insulates)
=1000101
There are several polymer solutions that exhibit lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behaviour. The classic example is PNIPAM - poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) - in water. It will form a phase separated gel at around 30C which makes it interesting for biological applications. A typical idea is to make a solution of polymer and cells and inject it in a site of injury. The temperature increases and the polymer forms a scaffold in situ. Good stuff but unfortunately PNIPAM does not degrade so its biological application is limited. Of course, the solvent for a LCST system need not be water but for the most part, that's what people have used (particularly for biological systems).
After that little introduction, the reason some solutions undergo a transition as the temperature is raised is because the hydrogen bonding between the solution and the polymer breaks down at raised temperatures and the polymer chains coil up and fall out of solution. Rather than form little particles, all the chains are still entanged and thus form a phase separated but cocontinuous gel with the solvent.
So anyway, the system mentioned in the article is unusual in that the cyclodextrin is a small molecule, not a polymer. No matter what others have said in their comments, that is something new.
By the way, I just looked up LCST on Wikipedia and found a link for N-isopropylacrylamide. Not a good article.
Recipe:
some water
some cornstarch
Instructions:
add water to cornstarch, stirring. At the right ratio, any quick motion with the spoon will freeze the solution into a solid. Once you stop pushing on the spoon it melts into a liquid.
Where's *my* Nobel prize?
(for the humor impaired, I understand that this article is about something different...just want to point out that a similar property has been demonstrated before)
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
It's a little bit O/T, but there is no point pursuing the liquid-filled beam/column idea - there are much, much better ways (read : both cheaper *and* more effective) of fire-protecting steel.
The basic issue, as you note, is that steel loses flexural strength at an alarming rate when heated. At 500degrees C, the flexural modulus is reduced over 50%, and that's enough to destabilise structures - after which loads get concentrated, and progressive collapse ensues. No need for actual melting.
So: how to keep structural temperatures down. There are a few basic approaches. One, occasionally used when the steel is BIG, is just to rely on Hp/A: if the exposed surface area is small compared with the cross-section, the rate of heating will be acceptaby low. The second is insulation: either a spray-on insulating coating (usually vermiculite-based), encapsulation in concrete, or enclosing with insulative board materials. There are also intumescent coatings, but these are expensive, and so limited to areas where the steel is exposed for aesthetic reasons - lobbies and the like. The third, proposed here, is essentially filling the structure with liquid. But a polymer like this, apart from expense, is never going to abstract enough heat to do any good. There is are only two structures I know of which do this, both exposed tubular structural members: the Cannon Stret office building (Ove Arup & Partners, London, 1973) and the Swiss Re building (Foster & Partners, London, 2003). In both cases the fluid is water with anti-corrosives and a bunch of other chemicals, and is continually pumped. Not cheap, but only water has a high enough specific heat capacity to be useful.
Note further, the point of fire protection is NEVER to save the building. The *only* criterion is to buy time to get people out, and safe. The building can fall, indeed should - after a major fire there will be all sorts of latent damage that could endanger future inhabitants. The two coincided at the WTC: it wasn't just the extraordinary fire load that brought the building down - but the impact which shook loose flaky insulative materials, fatally exposing the (lightweight floor) structure to high rates of heating.
McDonalds should make coffee cups with this stuff.
I wouldn't advise trying that. The liquid inside will expand and bust the plastic cube.. and I'd bet the liquid inside isn't good to ingest..
Actually, no. Helium-3 performs the same trick, although at a quite narrow pressure range.
And is the heat of fusion for this new stuff negative?
Play Command HQ online
um... some kind of coating for brake pads?
What about using it to make armor? You could fill small pouches with the stuff, then, when a bullet hits it, the heat will cause it to turn solid, stopping the bullet, a few seconds later after it cooled off again, the bullet would just sink to the bottom, and the armor would be ready to stop another bullet. (The liquid would have to be put in a self-healing container)
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Can this stuff be used to line condems?
ok, so what to use instead...
;-)
Metal cubes are probably not good because they may react with your drink. And your non-reactive metals like gold and platinum are both very heavy and very expensive...
it seems like anything you can do in this regard will either have similar problems (i.e. weight/efficiency of energy transfer) or be chemically unsafe as you are fighting the second law of thermodynamics.
So, if you want to fight the second law of thermodynamics as effectively as possible use a vacuum flask. Or you can decide not to fight it and add a heating element to your cup
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I made an omelette.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Every one at slashdot thinks they understand science because they think of themselves as geeks. I say it is not being a geek that makes you a scientist, but being a scientist makes you a geek. This story is a perfect example. Some material does something that we would not expect based upon our own observational experience, but since we "know science" it must violate all of our accepted scientific ideas. Its really funny if you don't take it serious. Seriously it must show that our educational system has doen such a poor job of explaining the basics of the scientific process and/or that we'd rather make fools of ourselves than admit that we don't know everything.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
My turd comes out liquidy but solidies when heat is applied and vice versa.
I don't know why this is considered novel; there are other known substances that also solidify with increased temperature. One I'm pretty familiar with is pluronic lecithin organogel (PLO), widely used in compounding pharmacy as a base for transdermal (through the skin) medications. PLO carries the drug it's mixed with right through the skin and nearly disappears from the surface.
Is to make that Android in Terminator 2.
God damned, I should have known, Cyberdyne does exist!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
This is interesting for rheologists. If you heat the liquid the viscosity probably increases a lot before it turns into a solid. This certainly has many mechanical applications such as shock absorbers, clutches, etc.
If the effect of higher temperature is equivalent to that achieved by lower pressure: could a material like this have the properties to be used as a liquid layer between an inner and an outer hull of a vessel in space (practicalities of getting it up there aside for the purposes of this argument of course) - so in case of a breach, the resulting drop in pressure would cause it to solidify around the point of an impact (e.g. of debris or micro-meteorites) exposing it to the vacuum, thus sealing the leak?
It has been known for a LONG time that solutions of "pluronic" , available by the tank car load from BASF, will gel as you raise the temperature of the liquid above RT, and the gel melts again at a still higher temp
Again, hydrogen bonding, but intrapolymer activity
I forget the exact details,but you can get brochures from basf with this info. Also, this has been used to prepare temp dep loading gels for capillary sequencing of DNA
"Those bugs that could hide the best (until they show up to bite you in the ass) will do so."
Kinda correlates with Murphies Law, huh?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Copper coated with a thin layer of stainless steel should do the trick (just like in high-end saucepans).
Although, thinking about it, they'd just sink to the bottom of the glass and shatter it.
Not really surprising, there are already a number of examples known for sol-gels where on heating the liquid phase forms a solid phase which melts on cooling.
It is not a liquid forming a solid, its a liquid phase containing the sol-gel turning to a gel phase on heating and back to a liquid phase on cooling.
I'd recommend some sort of radio-isotope clad in stainless steel. Self heating.
Plus if you hold your coffee cup between your legs in the car it could give your future children an opportunity for advantageous mutations. Of couse they could also turn out to be complete freaks but these days they're likely to turn out to be complete freaks anyhow so it is not like anyone would notice.
Did nobody try playing with water+cornflower as a child?? Am I taking crazy pills or hasn't this been done before??
I recall reading way back when that sulphur goes through an interesting variety of state changes as it's heated -- it first becomes a free-flowing liquid, then the viscosity increases in discrete steps as it's further heated, and then it becomes a free flowing liquid again and finally boils. It never really solidifies, but the viscosity markedly increases as it's heated to the point that it becomes taffy-like or harder.
Or my memory could be AFU.
I remember fron school chemistry many years ago that sulphur melts normally at a relatively modest temperature, and is clearly liquid, then as you keep heating, at a certain temperature the viscosity rises until it becomes first very viscous like treacle, and then almost, but not quite, solid. Eventually it starts to oxidise or burn. I don't know what happens in the absence of oxygen, whether it becomes liquid again as the temperature rises, or goes straight from very viscous to vapour. Maybe someone else has tried the extended experiment, and knows the answer?
But the point is that it is a fairly similar but not so extreme anomaly, but in a simple chemical element.
Are there any more, I wonder?
im not mr chemistry but however ...
wouldnt 'heating it' simply react it with oxygen in the air, then if it has weak bonds with the oxygen initally (covalent?) it would just decompose by loosing that oxide, (just like H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) does lose its Oxygen to become H2O2 -> H2O + O2)
thats my little theory but reading on they really changed hte laws around!
This is not novel. This polymer just happens to form weak bonds, as opposed to disulfide, vinyl, ester or other types of strong bonds typically associated with polymers. That's the neat part - they're mostly reversible.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Does anyone else detect a certain similarity between the blog at the 'read more' link from the original post, and Groklaw?
Is this a third-party template that they both happen to use, or did somebody just rip Groklaw's design?
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
I've always wanted ice cream that doesn't make my teeth hurt. How about making warm ice cream out of this stuff?
So please elaborate.
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
But I really don't know if 45C is that unrealistic when doing one's thing. :)
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
What are you drinking that lacks the viscosity to decelerate falling spheres from air? LN2?
Elemental sulfur has the same property as this new stuff. It melts at 96 C and reversibly polymerizes around 150 C to form a semisolid syrup which then turns much more fluid 50 C warmer.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Well... Plastic, when you heat it, goes liquid (and you really don't want to touch it when it is liquid, believe me), then back to solid when you remove the heat, you can even do it a couple of times before it has become totally a gas because of the heating process. I did it a lot of times with a lighter and straws (and too much time to spare) when I was young...
So, considering my past experiences, it looks like people who make great discoveries are either very intelligent or very stupid, hehehe
RedVortex
Ever heard of a viscous coupling with silicone fluid in it,
the viscosity of which fluid INCREASES with temperature ?
I didn't think so.
"The best option over the above (and a common upgrade) is the fully-mechanical "Torsen" ( torque-sensing ) differential.
Quaife makes one of these."
Actually, Quaife doesn't make a Torsen. Torsen is a registered
trade name used by the Gleason Gear works.
The Quaife diff operates on similar principles, but uses a different type of gear tooth machining process than the Torsen.
All Audi Quattros which are not Haldex equipped use Torsen differentials, by the way. The first Quattros used pneumatically
operated locking center and rear diffs, rather than Torsen diffs.
Many race cars use Quaife diffs.
Either of these diffs is NOT a limited slip differential, but rather is a torque-biasing differential.
The difference is, the torque biasing diff sends more power to the wheel which has the best grip on the driving surface. Whereas the limited slip prevents too much power from going to a wheel which has poor traction. It may seem a semantic difference, but it is not. The torque-biasing diff is more efficient and also is easier on tires.
The Quaife and Torsen are purely mechanical systems, but the most advanced rally cars ( and some of their street variants ) use
electro-hydraulic differentials, which work in concert with commands sent by a processor box which uses inputs from driver controls and from yaw sensors. This means that these
differentials can dynamically change the handling of the car, as desired by the driver, such that the car will oversteer or understeer more, according to the driver's needs.
Happy driving...
Leave it to the French to ignore the rules of Physics, and strike out on their own.
When will they cooperate?
But it's not as if it goes through amorphous to ordered to amorphous. The hydrogen bonding creates a solid-bonding in quite a loose sense as sol-gel structures are like toothpaste physically.
Certainly not "nothing to see here," but not T-1000 either.
This material is just from the new T-1100 from Terminator 4. :)
Help cure cancer! Fold for slashdot: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=
Perhaps, it might work...
Rwe obliged 2 save our future by choosing:O3 hole-greenhouse effect instead of accepting everydays gossip-nonsense chat?
It does that if you heat it long enough and hot enough.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
How the hell is the above post redundant when it is THE ONLY POST stating that the wife has prior art for her ice blood? Wtf is up with that?
Halitosis - (n.) Halle Berry's Camel Toe.
What about viscious differentials? I thought they have a liquid in them that solidifies from friction (heat) and causes them to lock.
" 'hot enough to melt the beams'
Even with jet fuel it wasn't enough to melt the steel. The problem is that steel loses much of it's strength at high temperatures, making it liable to bend or snap under load."
The impacts blew off the spray-on insulation protecting the steel. Without it a large spreading fire was enough to weaken the steel. Jet fuel was the match: it lit the fire but didn't keep it burning.
More contentious is whether the buildings should have been able to avoid collapse even with the weakened steel and structural damage. In an attempt to maximize contiguous internal floor space and use less material the towers were designed very differently from earlier 'scrapers. (Anyone know if later buildings used their design?) Some claim this doomed the buildings; others that it's the only reason they stayed up as long as they did.
Feeling so good natured I could drool
...and salt water is not a liquid, its a solution. This is a pure chemical substance this article discusses.
I'd also like to ask who is the mod who gave this an extra point and said "interesting"? More proof of slashdots failure as a moderating system.
Take an egg. Heat it. Observe the liquid changing into a solid... (BTW it is not reversible)
Pour a lot of beer through a 98-degree college student body and something solid eventually comes out.
But what about a liquid that becomes solid when it's heated? Of course, it has already been done,...
...and repeated many times in the kitchen by my wife.
Tuna Casserole Surprise, anyone?
ICE melts YOU!