water bottle ice science experiment

Instant Ice Science Experiment for Kids

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This easy instant ice science experiment requires very few supplies but has a big impact. All you’ll have to do is pour liquid water and watch it magically turn into ice before your eyes!

See the Instant Ice Science Experiment in Action

Bottled water
Glass or ceramic bowl
Plastic tray or shallow metal cookie sheet
Curious kids

Put water bottles in the freezer for two hours. (You might want to set a timer to remind you to get them out!) Lay them on their sides for the best results, but try not to dent them.
Remove the water bottles from the freezer before they freeze. (You’ll know they’re ready when crystals form when you jostle the bottles.)
Place a ceramic bowl upside down on a flat surface (like a tray) to catch the water overage.
Place an ice cube on top of the pouring surface.
Then SLOWLY pour while instant ice forms!

How the Instant Ice Science Experiment Works

This simple but amazing instant ice science experiment is more than just a cool one (see what I did there?). The science behind this experiment lies in the freezing temperature of water and how ice crystals form. This experiment is sometimes referred to as Supercooled Water or Flash Freezing. When the freezing temperature is reached, the water molecules freeze by forming ice crystals.

Why did we put an ice cube on top of the bowl? Because it’s easier for the water molecules to turn to ice on top of already-formed ice crystals. As the ice crystals build on existing ice crystals, they eventually freeze the entire bottle of water.

The process of starting the ice crystals is called “nucleation.” Nucleation starts from an impurity or scratch or piece of dust on the container holding the water. In this case, the nucleation is the water bottle. One ice crystal attaches to the imperfection, and the others grow on top. Isn’t science cool?!

Check for Understanding

Explore this concept further by asking your kids these questions and experimenting:

Would the experiment work the same if the water had food coloring added to the water?
Would the results be the same if you started the experiment with hot water in the bottles before you put them in the freezer?
Does the temperature in the room change the results?
How high of an ice tower can you pour before it breaks?

Additional Resources

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Check out these fun resources!

The Solid Truth about States of Matter –This graphic novel with colorful pictures throughout will help your students learn basic science truths in a fun format!

Rookie Read About Science : Solids, Liquids, and Gases– This 5″ x 7″ book uses three examples and lot of colorful photos to illustrate the different states of matter. The text is simple and direct and perfect for young students.

Many Kinds of Matter –This jewel of a science book is just the right of information for teaching this topic. Colorful photos and understandable text make this one my favorites!

Why does water expand when it freezes-Naked Science: This fun format uses high-speed drawings and simple text to get the point across. I dare you to try to stop watching!

Brain Stuff–How Can Hot Water Freeze Faster Than Cold Water–All of Brain Stuff’s videos are so well done. You can tell they’re big budget and are pros at this YouTube platform! Enjoy!

Do you love science experiments as much as we do? Then be sure to check out this experiment with salt and ice.

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One comment.

It is so cool ? Tried it with my older sister it was very fun.?

Instant Ice Science Experiment

This science experiment is an exciting experiment to show your child water transforming from liquid to a solid instantaneously!

The Instant Ice experiment shows the transformation from liquid to solid in an instant! When purified water is supercooled (cooled below freezing point), it will instantly turn from a liquid to a solid when it is disturbed. This could be by a jolt to the container or just adding an ice cube to it.

To make it more exciting, your child can create fun ice sculptures while pouring the supercooled water. Since it only takes a few items that you likely have on hand, this is an easy at-home experiment.

How to make the Instant Ice experiment

Supplies you will need.

For the Instant Ice experiment, you’ll need:

Bottles of purified water
A freezer with space to lay bottles flat

Before you start

I found that water bottles with harder plastic tended to be easier to handle than softer plastic. I used Dasani water bottles and had a much easier time than with a softer plastic bottle like Zephyrhills.

Instructions

Here is how to do the Instant Ice experiment:

Step 1: Place your water bottle(s) in the freezer on their side

I wanted to have a few water bottles in the freezer, just in case I accidentally messed up on the experiment.

It varies for everyone, but your water bottles will likely need at least 1.5 hours to get ready, likely more. Mine needed about 2.5 hours.

If, by 1.5 hours, your water bottles are not ready, check back every 15-20 minutes.

Optional (but encouraged): I also added a water bottle with tap water in it as a control. Once the tap water bottle froze and the purified water was still liquid, I knew it was ready to go.

Step 2: Carefully open the water bottle

Remember how I mentioned that a simple jolt could ignite the freeze? Since you have to hold the bottle in order to unscrew the cap, you will want to be careful about the amount of pressure you place on the bottle.

Step 3: Pour the supercooled water into the empty container

You won’t have to be as careful with this step.

Step 4: Start the freeze!

Take a piece of ice and simply touch it to the surface of the supercooled water. You won’t have to hold it for long: it should instantly activate the freeze and you will be able to see the water transform to ice!

The ice cube you added will sit on top at this point.

Get your child involved : Let your child touch the ice cube to the top of the water and ignite the freeze. They will feel like they have superpowers!

Step 5: Add water to create ice sculptures

You can do this in either container (the newly-formed ice or the container with ice cubes).

Slowly pour the water out of the water bottle and into these containers to create fun ice sculptures!

Get your child involved : Allow your child free reign over the ice sculptures. Let them get creative! There’s no right or wrong with this step.

Here’s a quick video of creating ice sculptures:

The science behind the Instant Ice science experiment

The Instant Ice experiment showcases the transformation from a liquid to a solid in an instant.

How it works

This experiment studies supercooled water, which is when the water’s temperature falls below freezing but does not actually freeze.

When water is very pure, it is difficult for ice crystals to form because they need what is called a “nucleation point” (the first step in the formation of a new thermodynamic phase) to begin freezing.

When supercooled water is disturbed (by hitting it or introducing a piece of ice, like in our experiment), it instantly turns to ice!

More chemistry experiments to try out with your child

Fizzing lemons experiment – using lemons and baking soda to make a lemon volcano
Homemade lava lamp – vinegar and baking soda bubble around in a container of oil
Magnetic Slime – classic slime, but with an interactive lesson in magnets

FAQ about the Instant Ice Experiment

Does the plastic bottle have to be a harder or softer plastic.

In my opinion, plastic bottles with harder plastic allow you to handle them easier in their supercooled state than a softer plastic bottle. When I used a softer plastic bottle, I initiated the freeze accidentally every time.

Can you make instant ice with tap water?

For this experiment, it is not recommended to use regular tap water. Tap water holds contaminants that could be enough for a nucleation point, which would trigger the freeze when the water reaches the freezing point. By using purified water, you have no contaminants, which will allow your water to stay a liquid well under freezing temperatures.

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Instant Ice: Winter Science Experiment for Kids

My kids love science projects that involve something that looks just a bit like magic. We’ve had a lot of fun making glow-in-the-dark projects, flying projects, and anything that has a “wow” factor. This winter, we resolved to try and make instant ice. We knew the project could be a bit tricky, but we didn’t have any problems with it at all! The experiment turned out just as it ought to, which is always a great feeling!

Watch ice form before your very eyes in this fun science experiment!

You’ll need just a few things for this project:

Water bottles (we used a dozen, just in case!)

Place 6-12 water bottles in your freezer (or you can do it outside, but the temperature is less predictable out there). Lay them flat on their sides rather than upright. For some reason, they freeze better this way. If your kids want to experiment, place some upright and some on their sides and see which one works best!

Cool the water for about two to two and a half hours. At the two hour mark, take out one bottle and test it. If you can slam it on the counter and nothing forms, the water isn’t cool enough yet. When you get one that hardens, it is ready to go, but you’ll have to work quickly!

Kids will love this hands-on science project that looks like magic! Make instant ice using only a water bottle and an ice cube!

Turn bowl upside down over a towel (to catch the spills) and place a large ice cube on the bowl.

Carefully pour the water slowly onto the ice cube.

The water will create a column of frozen ice!

In about 20 seconds, the water will get too warm for this trick to work. But you can repeat it with all the water bottles you have!

Instant Ice Science Explained

The trick to this experiment is super-cooled water. You’re catching the water when it is cold enough to freeze, but hasn’t quite frozen yet. When ice freezes, the water forms small crystals that gradually spread. If you catch the cold water before the crystals have time to form, you can still pour out the water and it will freeze as you pour. Pouring it over an ice cube triggers crystals to form faster than they normally would.

You can get a similar effect by smashing a still-closed bottle of super-cooled water onto a hard surface. This triggers the crystals to form, instantly hardening the ice inside the bottle. The weather term for this process is called a “snap freeze.”

Ice Science Vocabulary

Celsius – Celsius (or “degrees Celsius”, or sometimes “Centigrade”) is a temperature scale. It is used to tell how hot or cold something is and is often written as °C. Water will freeze at 0°C and boil at 100°C

Fahrenheit – is also a temperature scale, typically used in the United States. We use it to tell how hot or cold something is. It is often written as °F. Water will freeze at 32°F and boil. at 212°F.

Snap-freeze – a term used to describe a process by which a scientific sample is lowered to temperatures below -70 °C, very quickly. This is often accomplished by submerging a sample in liquid nitrogen. This prevents water from crystalizing when it forms ice, and so better preserves the structure of the sample.

Liquid Nitrogen – Nitrogen turns liquid at -210 degrees Celsius or -346 degrees Fahrenheit. When nitrogen is liquid, it looks a lot like water.

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Science Projects > Earth & Space Projects > Super-Cooled Water Science Project

Super-Cooled Water Science Project

In this super-cooled water science project, we’ll show you how you can make “instant” ice by chilling water in the freezer without letting it freeze solid.

What You Need:

4-6 unopened bottles of water
Clear glasses

What You Do:

1. Clear some space in your freezer and place the bottles of water on their sides, making sure they aren’t touching anything else in the freezer.

2. Close the freezer door and set a timer for 2 hours. After 2 hours, check on the bottles to see if ice has formed inside any. Handle the bottles as carefully as you can, and only pick them up if you can’t easily see inside them.

3. If there aren’t any ice crystals in your bottles, carefully close the freezer and set the timer for 15 more minutes, then check again. Repeat for 15 more minutes if necessary.

4. While you wait for the water to finish cooling, put a few small chunks of ice in a bowl and set out your larger bowl and glasses on the counter.

5. As soon as you notice ice inside any of the bottles, your other bottles are ready, even though they aren’t frozen. Very carefully remove one of the bottles from the freezer and set it on the counter. (Note: Leave the other bottles in the freezer to chill until you’re ready to use them, but don’t leave for too long or they will turn to solid ice! If you take them all out at once, they will begin to warm up slightly and the results of the experiments will not be as impressive.)

6. Set one ice cube in the large bowl and very carefully remove the cap from the chilled bottle of water. Slowly pour the water into the bowl, directly on the ice cube. It should begin to freeze and pile up on top of the ice as soon as it touches it!

7. Now try pouring some of the water into a glass. Does anything happen? What happens to the chilled water if you drop a small chunk of ice into it?

8. Pour some water into another glass and hold an ice cube in the water for a second. What happens? The ice in the glass should freeze around the ice cube, holding it in place!

What Happened:

If water is pure enough and doesn’t contain contaminants, such as dust or tiny pieces of other substances, you can get its temperature to drop below its normal freezing point (32° Fahrenheit/0° Celsius) before it actually begins to freeze! Why? In order to form ice, the water needs a nucleation site – a small spot where the first ice crystal can begin. Once an ice crystal forms, the rest of the water will freeze fairly quickly.

The undisturbed bottles of water you left in the freezer for several hours became super-cooled. That means the temperature of the water was below freezing, but because there wasn’t a nucleation site for ice to form, the water hadn’t frozen yet. Once you opened the bottle and exposed the very cold water to a solid piece of ice, the water froze instantly! The ice cube provided a nucleation site for the first drop of water to freeze, and from there it was sort of like a chain reaction, where more and more water froze on top of it, creating a slushy ice sculpture in your bowl.

What do you think would happen to the pure water in the bottles if you left them in the freezer for longer? Would they eventually freeze solid or stay liquid? Learn more about solids and liquids with this science lesson for kids, and experiment with frozen bubbles !

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Level of Education

Post Secondary

Recommended Age

Time Required

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~20 minutes
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Supervision

Instant-Freeze Water

Meta Description

Learning Objectives

Understand how the process of supercooling works and why some liquids do not freeze when cooled below their freezing point. Understand the concept of latent heat of fusion. Introduction to the concept of ice being formed by a lattice structure of water molecules.

Crystallisation The formation of a solid in which the molecules form a highly organised and symmetric structures called crystals.

Crystalline structure

An ordered arrangement of atoms or molecules in a solid. This ordered arrangement consists of repeating patterns of molecules.

Distilled water

Water without any impurities. Impurities are removed from the water through a process known as distillation.

Latent energy

Refers to the energy released or absorbed by a thermodynamic system at a constant temperature.

Seed crystal

An initial crystal that allows for the continued process of crystallization.

Supercooled liquid

A liquid with a temperature below its freezing point but which is still in the liquid state.

Step 1 Fill two plastic water bottles with distilled water and refrigerate them overnight. Although only two water bottles are used in the experiment, placing extra bottles of water in the fridge is advisable so that the experiment can be attempted multiple times.

Fill the container with ice.

Submerge two refrigerated plastic water bottles in the ice, making sure all surfaces of the bottles are in contact with the ice.

Generously sprinkle rock salt all over the ice.

Insert a thermometer between the bottle and the ice in order to monitor the temperature of the bottle.

Carefully monitor the temperature of the bottles in the container until it drops to -8oC. If the temperature falls below -8oC, the water can freeze prematurely. During this period of observation, add extra ice and salt to the container as needed to keep the bottles submerged in the ice and salt mixture.

After the water has been at -8oC for 10 minutes, remove the bottle from the container, and note that it is still in liquid state. Strike the bottle sharply against a table and observe what happens.

Try pouring the supercooled water onto an ice-cube and see how high an ice tower you can create.

The bottles used should be made of plastic, not glass. Striking a glass bottle on a table may cause it to break and produce a health hazard.

You and a friend are hanging out on a hot day and you decide to play a prank on them. Offering your friend a bottle of water you reach into an ice bath and pull out a strangely cold bottle of water. As you are about to hand it to them you ask them if they wanted ice with their water, then strike the bottle against a hard surface. The water seems to instantly freeze right before your eye. “How did you do that?” Your friend asks, amazed!

A little bit of advice:

It is very difficult to get this experiment to work correctly the first time around and that is why this demonstration is not ideal for festivals. This experiment is impressive, but it is highly sensitive to small changes in variables, so the result can be very much hit-or-miss. To increase the likelihood of success, during the demonstration, document the amounts of ice and salt used, and take measurements of the time that bottles are submerged in the ice and salt. This can help you to keep track of the experimental conditions and if the experiment is a failure, these recordings can help you avoid repeating the mistake by changing some experimental variables, for example by increasing the amount of salt used or the time of submersion.

For how long does the water need to be supercooled? If the water is already refrigerated, it should be kept in ice for at least 10 minutes.

Why is it so difficult to get the experiment right the first time around? The success of the experiment depends on many variables; such as temperature, and the proportions of ice and salt. Small changes in these variables can lead to success or failure.

Does it only work with pure water? No, but other factors need to be considered in that case, for example the water may need to be cooled to a higher or lower temperature.

Why is the salt added to the ice? To decrease the temperature of the ice below 0oC.

Why use distilled water? Distilled water has a freezing point of 0oC. Water that is not distilled may have impurities that increase or decrease the freezing point of the water.

When water is cooled and starts to freeze, the molecules in the water come together to form a crystalline structure. The crystalline structure is what gives ice its rigidness. The water molecules in the crystalline structure have less energy than water molecules in the liquid state. This is due to the fact that in the transition from liquid to solid, energy is released as heat. This also explains why the supercooled water turns into a slush rather than a solid chunk when it freezes instantly. The heat released from the instant formation of ice prevents the formation of a solid ice block.

For ice to form as the water cools, the initial ice crystals need an object on which to grow around. In normal water, ice usually grows on microscopic impurities found in the water, however, if distilled (or very pure) water is used, it contains no such impurities. Thus, the water can be cooled below its freezing point of 0oC without actually freezing and remaining as a liquid, in a process known as supercooling. Striking the bottle against a hard surface (such as the table) makes it more likely that some of the molecules in the water move together to form a crystal structure. Once a few of the molecules join together, the crystal can grow around them. Thus, the molecules quickly join together, and the crystal structure spreads throughout, causing the water in the bottle to freeze almost instantly. ( https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/instant-freeze-soda-ice/ )

The theoretical freezing point of water is 0oC, when water is cooled below this temperature, it can be expected to change state from a liquid to a solid, ice. However, in this experiment the distilled water was supercooled: its temperature was lowered below 0oC, but it remained a liquid until it was struck on a hard surface.

Heat energy plays a key role in changes of state. In the transition from solid to liquid, for example from ice to water, heat energy needs to be provided in order to break the crystal lattice in the ice. In order for a liquid to transition to a solid, it must lose heat energy through the cooling process. However, simply cooling a liquid is not enough for water molecules to arrange themselves into solid crystals, extra energy must be provided to initiate the process of crystallisation, known as the latent heat of fusion. As soon as this energy has been provided and a small crystal is formed in the liquid, the rest of the molecules in the liquid quickly rearrange themselves into a crystal structure and the water freezes to a solid. The small crystal which triggers the crystallization process is called a seed crystal. In the case of this experiment, the latent heat of fusion is provided by striking the bottle against a table. This latent heat energy is enough for the water molecules to group and form at least one seed crystal.

Salt was mixed was added into the container of ice, to help supercool the water. On its own, ice would have maintained a temperature in the region of 0oC, which would have been too high to supercool the water to -8oC. Adding salt to the water had the effect of lowering the freezing point of the ice and allowing it to maintain a cooler temperature, making it appropriate for use in supercooling. The process of lowering the freezing point of a substance is known as freezing point depression.

Applications

Heat packs are used to warm parts of the body in order to relieve pain. Some heat packs use chemical reactions that release thermal energy i.e. exothermic reaction. In some packs, supersaturated sodium acetate is heated until it melts into a liquid. As it cools it remains as a liquid until a nucleation site is created, and then the sudden crystallization of the sodium acetate releases thermal energy. ( http://materiability.com/portfolio/latent-heat-storage/ )

The concept of latent is being implemented in novel ways to improve the efficiency of heat pumps. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/15596_en.html

Experiment with different types of water (for example tap water or flavoured water) and observe the behaviour of the water as it freezes. https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/instant-freeze-soda-ice/

Investigate the effects of cooling the distilled water to different temperatures below 0oC.

Preparation: At least 1 day

Conducting: 5 mins

Clean Up: 15 mins

Number of People

1 participant

Crushed salt Ice Large container Rock salt Several bottles of purified or distilled water Thermometer

Contributors

Additional Content

Instant Freeze Water – Bottle Slam (Beginner)

Measuring the Latent Heat of Fusion of Ice (Intermediate)

Phase Change and Latent Heat (Advanced)

Cite this Experiment

Vella, R., Padfield, N., & Styles, C. (2020, August 25). Instant-Freeze Water. Retrieved from http://steamexperiments.com/experiment/instant-freeze-water/

First published: August 25, 2020 Last modified: August 25, 2020