Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum
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Posted by: nvyboy407 ® 04/27/2004, 17:13:12 Author Profile Mail author Edit

I was assigned a project by my chemistry teacher, and I was wondering if anyone knows whether or not water can freeze in a vacuum.  I know that during regular freezing the tetrahadral shape of water traps air during the freezing process, which is why ice is less dense than water.  But there isn't any air in a vacumm, so I wasn't sure if it would still freeze and not have any air trapped or if just wouldn't freeze.  Thanks!!

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Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum
Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum -- nvyboy407	Post Reply	Top of thread	Forum

Posted by: Cragyon ® 04/27/2004, 21:16:32 Author Profile Mail author Edit

I'm no expert on this subject, check out the thermodynamics section   (/thermodynamics/table_contents.htm)  here on Engineer Edge.  Start with Triple point /thermodynamics/triple_point.htm The pressure and temperature of the water will effect the state (Gas, liquid or Solid).   This could be a trick question.. Modified by Cragyon at Tue, Apr 27, 2004, 21:20:03

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Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum
Re: Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum -- Cragyon	Post Reply	Top of thread	Forum

Posted by: Cragyon ® 04/28/2004, 07:23:45 Author Profile Mail author Edit

Check out this page as well /h2o_boil_pressure.htm

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Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum
Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum -- nvyboy407	Post Reply	Top of thread	Forum

Posted by: RandyKimball ® 04/27/2004, 18:46:39 Author Profile Mail author Edit

Ok, someone will zap me for this one, but I'm going out on a limb. It has been years, but as I recall you can't have a complete vacuum until you have boiled off all moisture in the pumping process. A vacuum is void of gas and water in its evaporated state is a gas, more or less, and water boils in a vacuum a room temp. 'And so on and until the container is empty (almost, of gasses). OK, physics majors am I right? -randy- The worst suggestion of you lifetime may be the catalyst to the grandest idea of the century, never let suggestions go unsaid nor fail to listen to them. Modified by RandyKimball at Wed, Apr 28, 2004, 19:06:23

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Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum
Re: Re: Freezing point of water in a complete vacuum -- RandyKimball	Post Reply	Top of thread	Forum

Posted by: istre ® 05/25/2004, 12:38:58 Author Profile Mail author Edit

I have seen a glass of water placed in a vacuum chamber and then subjected to dropping pressures, and as the pressure dropped, the water began to boil violently, though its temperature kept dropping. At some low pressure, water cannot exist as a liquid, so it froze, but the pressure kept dropping. As it crossed the solid-vapor line again back to vapor, it just violently exploded. Pretty impressive, really, though it never got to 0 psia. The short answer is that yes, water can exist as a solid in a vacuum. Look at icy comets that exist in the vacuum of deep space. However, to get water to that point means some pretty extreme and violent phase changes from room temperature and 1 atm. This link shows what's called a pressure-temperature phase diagram and it shows that at extremely low pressures, given a low enough temperature, water can freeze and exist as a solid. https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html

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