How does the temperature of water effect the time it takes for it to freeze?

Question

Help me with another science fair project so that I can make something of my life when I get older! Please and thank you!

Answer 1

Water freezing is affected in the sense that the hotter the water, the longer it would naturally take to change temperature. The closer to room temperature the water is when beginning the freezing process the faster the water will freeze. Atmospheric pressure is an important factor to be considered as well. Water in places that are higher , will take less time to freeze than water which is closer to sea level. Example: Water in Denver will freeze faster than water in San Francisco. Same goes for boiling as well. Hope that helps a little.

Answer 2

Water freezes at 32 degrees F until all the water is frozen. The rate at which the water freezes depends on the quantity of water and how fast heat is removed. In a lake during the approach of winter, all the water must turn over. Water at the bottom at perhaps 60F must rise and be replaced by colder surface water until all the lake water is 32F, then ice will freeze at the surface and float. The floating ice is an insulator which limits the thickness of ice even if the air gets very cold. If a freezing unit is much colder than a quantity of water in direct contact, a layer of ice may form on the unit surface slowing down heat transfer and freezing. That is why a refrigerator must be periodically "defrosted" to cool properly. Modern refrigerators use heat to defrost automatically, limiting the buildup of ice on cooling elements.

Answer 3

Water freezes at 0 degrees C. You have to remove heat energy from the water to get it down to this temperature before it starts to freeze. The higher the starting temperature, the more heat you need to remove.

But other factors can come into play:

Impurities in water can make it freeze at a lower temperature. Heating water can remove some of the disolved gasses (impurities) and thereby raising its freezing point over unheated water from the same source.

If you set a bucket of hot water and a bucket of cold water outside in the snow, the hot bucket will melt more of the snow around it. Wet snow and the solid ice which results when the melted snow re-freezes conduct heat much better than dry snow, so the water in the hot bucket may freeze first: there's more heat to remove, but better heat conduction lets it be removed more quickly.

Answer 4

Hot water can in fact freeze faster than cold water for a wide range of experimental conditions. This phenomenon is extremely counter- intuitive, and surprising even to most scientists, but it is in fact real.

Take a look here for an amusing explanation:

http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

Answer 5

when water is going to be frozen, it means we are taking out heat from the water.

water releases heat to change from the liquid state to solid state.

from the equation Q = m . c. delta t
it means the larger the delta t, the larger the heat to be reelased.
releasing heat will take longer time.