Name: How to make instant ice | Do Try This At Home! | At-Bristol Science Centre
Uploaded: 2025-07-08T21:01:30.000Z
Duration: 3 min 20 s
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Hi, I'm Eddie. I'm a formal communicator here in At Bristol

In our water cycle workshop we talk about 'Supercooled Water'

I've got a demo here for you that's great to try at home.

So, you may notice on those cold winter evenings people place salt

out on the streets and pavements, because salty water can go well below zero degrees

We're going to try and get a bottle of fresh water to get well below zero degrees C

a beaker with round about 100ml of tapwater

teaspoon, and a metal cylinder to place all of your ingredients inside.

First thing I'm going to do is to pour plenty of crushed ice

into the bottom of my metal cylinder then

I need five teaspoons salt to sprinkle around

I'm going to now place my small water bottle inside

Around that water bottle now i need to pack in

Now i'm going to pour this salty water all around the ice

What we do now is just sit and wait for a good 30 minutes

and then our supercooled water should be ready

The reason why i can get a bottle of fresh water below zero degrees without freezing

we have nonucleation points. A nucleation point is simply

any impurities inside that bottle of water which is going to allow

ice crystals to form around it. Now when I have my bottle of fresh water that is

liquid but below zero degrees, if i cause a disturbance

like pouring that water over an ice cube, I'm going to create many nucleation sites

and that liquid will turn to ice instantly.

it's been about 30 minutes now, so let's see if our super cooled water

So there you go. Instant ice, fantastic experiment.