Why, when brought from an ambient temperature to a low temperature environment, water kept in a glass won’t freeze immediately, but when throw mid air will?

Question

(https://youtu.be/pTf7X_COAvM).

why will water immediately freeze when thrown, but will remain liquid for some time if kept in a glass or somewhere else?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Surface area!

When water is in the glass, it has limited exposure to the cold air. But when you pour it, the surface area is expanded exponentially and it can lose temperature much faster.

Answer 2

Ice needs a starting point to form. Think of an ice crystal as a maze with you have to draw a line through in order to complete it. If you haven’t found the place to start the line in the maze then there’s no way for it to freeze. Contamination in water is where freezing first starts when forming ice crystals. In pure enough water there aren’t any of these starting points. When you throw water into the air it becomes less dense and there is the Jacob more opportunities for ice crystals to form. Water below the freezing temperature of 32 degrees is called supercooled.

Supercooling of water is possible because water needs a small nucleus or seed of ice for the molecules to form crystals and in very pure water “the only way you can form a nucleus is by spontaneously changing the structure of the liquid.