Can you make ice stay cold forever?

Question

We all know that a quick and easy way to make cold ice is to put water in the freezer. But take it out and after a while it will warm up and turn back into water. Just as expected.

My exact question is: If you could compress an amount of water into ice - then put that newly compressed ice in a perfect fitting container that would not let the ice expand back into water; Would the ice inside the container stay permently cold? or would the ice in the container warm up to it's surroundings but stay in its solid state?

My exact question is: If you could compress an amount of water into ice - then put that newly compressed ice in a perfect fitting container that would not let the ice expand back into water; Would the ice inside the container stay permently cold? or would the ice in the container warm up to it's surroundings but stay in its solid state?

**edit** "ice" is an inappropriate term. I just mean compressed in to a solid state. Even though it would take immense pressure to do so.

Answer 1

Interesting theory, however water expands when it freezes. It has no problem melting under pressure.

Answer 2

Yours is a fascinating question. First, if one freezes water into ice and compresses the ice to high pressures, what happens? The answer depends on the phase diagram among water ice, steam, and liquid. In the world we live in, water ice melts at room temperature, no matter what the pressure.

So: Sorry: You are wrong. You cannot keep water ice in the solid state, no matter the pressure. Another person has disagreed with this, though this has nothing to do with the world we live in.

Kurt Vonnegut conceived of a crystalline form of water ice called ice IX. (When he wrote the book, there were already eight different crystalline forms of water ice, each existing at enormous pressures and extremely low temperatures. In Vonnegut's book, the only reason why the world had not already frozen over into ice IX was that there had never been a nucleating crystal. In Vonnegut's book, the nucleating crystal is found, and the world comes to an end.

Answer 3

So your basic question is: can you increase pressure and keep H2O solid at room temperature, and the answer is a resounding YES.

Established melting/freezing points are not absolute numbers. They are experimental values obtained at average pressure, temperature and altitude. Change any one of these parameters, and you change the melting/freezing point.

Hence why water boils quicker on Mount Everest (where atmospheric pressure is lower) than it does in Death Valley (where atmospheric pressure is higher).

(For a pretty cool realistic example, google Armstrong Limit, the altitude at which human blood boils at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit)

Anywho, if you were to increase the pressure of a system containing water, you would essentialy increase the melting/freezing point of the water. Increase the pressure enough, and the freezing point rises to room temperature and voila, room temperature ice, as long as the pressure is maintained.

I don't believe your particular method of prooving this would prove very effective, for the reasons outlined about, and I don't know how you would experimentally perform this, but it is definitely possible.

Answer 4

That's a good idea! But ice expands when it's frozen, not when it's melted. But you could prbably do something with rock salt, i know that keeps things cold.

Answer 5

There is no solid state of water which exists at normal room temperature, regardless of pressure.

Answer 6

If ice compressed when it froze I think that would work and it's a good theory... but it expands... sorry!

Answer 7

rest and proper diet try cucumber compresses. like what welders use.