They stay pretty much the same size in the ice cube tray, but shrink when I put loosely in the freezer.
In: Chemistry
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They are drying up. They are going directly from ice (solid) to vapor. This is called sublimation.
ELI5: “For the same reason, sugar cubes shrink in water.”
ELI10: Water evaporates at any temperature, even when it’s frozen. It’s a bit of an anomaly there in how happy it is to do so, but in what respect is water normal anyway? Combined with it being soluble in air (which helps in actually carrying off the evaporated water), it becomes really noticeable.
All solids do that, but at rates where they very well could not when looked at from our point of view. It becomes more prominent when closer to their melting temperatures, which most objects we are dealing with daily are not.
Do they though? Have you actually seen this firsthand or just heard about it on the Internet?
I’ve had ice cubes in my freezer for a year that have not shrunk.
Is this just a US thing?
Sublimation. They’re not shrinking, the ice is basically evaporating into the air in the freezer.
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