Basically would Argon Gas keep the ice from melting or at least slow down the melting. Imagine that the frozen water is just completely surrounded by a layer of argon.
2007-07-09 05:45:27 · 3 answers · asked by stewcat123 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
no, argon alone is not cold enough.
2007-07-09 05:48:50 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ice melts when the environment around it is warmer than 0 Celsius. Heat flows from the hotter object to the colder one, so heat would flow from the surroundings into the ice.
Gases (including both air and argon) are poor conductors of heat, because they contain so little matter in a given volume. This is why an ice cube will melt rapidly in water at 20 Celsius, but will melt much more slowly in air at 20 Celsius.
That being said, argon is not going to have drastically different heat conducting properties than air, so it won't make much difference. A better insulator is a vacuum. A two-layered thermos bottle with all the air pumped out from between the layers is generally how it's implemented.
2007-07-09 05:52:15 · answer #2 · answered by lithiumdeuteride 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would help a little (compared to surrounding it with air). Argon's thermal conductivity is about 2/3 that of air, so the ice would be a little bit better insulated from the outside heat.
2007-07-09 05:58:50 · answer #3 · answered by RickB 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋