Water Bottle Freezes - Weird Question as to Why

[jellyrug]

Fred's answer: "The water in the bottle, taken all as a unit/system, has not released all of its latent heat of fusion (see Enthalpy of fusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and needs to release just a tiny amount so that all of it becomes a solid. As you can see in the video the water in the bottle remains as a mixture of water in liquid and solid/crystal form. That's because most of the latent heat of fusion had been lost, but not all. The vibration on the bottle caused most water molecules (which were ready to enter into the solid phase), to release the tiny amount of heat that wold allow them to join other water molecules into crystals. Therefore, most of the water turned to ice and the small amount of water remaining took the heat released from the crystal forming molecules and stayed liquid, still at 0 Celsius. If the bottle had been left alone long enough it would have solidified eventually when all of the liquid water had released its latent heat of fusion. The fact that the water is filtered helps delay the onset of crystallization by removing potential nucleation centers."

I don't agree with Fred, by moving the bottle, or shaking it, however minute, he is actually adding latent heat (Energy) to the bottle and it's contents.
Cwagmire hit it right on the nose, I agree with his theory.

"It is called supercooled water. If the water is extremely pure, as in has very little to no particulate in the water, there will not be any nucleation sites in the liquid, which is required to start the freezing process. Once the bottle is shaken or disturbed, air bubbles introduced to the liquid will act as nucleation sites around which the water will begin freezing. Once it begins freezing, the ice will spread until the entire bottle is frozen."

 

[Fastfrog007]

McGuyver?

Maybe? I just recall seeing it before the internet was popular, so I just assume.it was tv

Smellphone via Forum Runner

 

[AJAY]

Absolutely is the result of supercooling. The water is very pure and the surface of the plastic bottle does not offer good nucleation sites to initiate crystallization. Hitting the water bottle sends a shockwave through the water, which is the same as locally compressing (increasing the pressure) in the water. This kicks the water over and starts growing crystals.

From Wikipedia:

Supercooling, also known as undercooling,[1] is the process of lowering the temperature of a liquid or a gas below its freezing point without it becoming a solid.

A liquid below its standard freezing point will crystallize in the presence of a seed crystal or nucleus around which a crystal structure can form. However, lacking any such nucleus, the liquid phase can be maintained all the way down to the temperature at which crystal homogeneous nucleation occurs. Homogeneous nucleation can occur above the glass transition temperature, but if homogenous nucleation has not occurred above that temperature an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid will form.

Water normally freezes at 273.15 K (0 °C or 32 °F) but it can also be "supercooled" at standard pressure down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 224.8 K (−48.3 °C/−55 °F).[2][3] If, however, it is cooled at a rate on the order of 106 K/s, the crystal nucleation can be avoided and water becomes a glass. Its glass transition temperature is much colder and harder to determine, but studies estimate it at about 165 K (−108 °C/−162.4 °F).[4] Glassy water can be heated up to approximately 150 K (−123 °C/−189.4 °F).[3] In the range of temperatures between 231 K (−42 °C/−43.6 °F) and 150 K (−123 °C/−189.4 °F) experiments find only crystal ice.

BTW, I would not necessarily would have predicted this effect, but it is pretty obvious and the effect is well understood.