X-Message-Number: 2123 Date: Sun, 18 Apr 93 16:24:10 CDT From: Brian Wowk <> Subject: CRYONICS Submerged Ethanol Steve Harris: > Actually, I did suggest n-propanol (1-propanol) as a pos- > siblity. Indeed you did. My apologies. > However, fuzzy as their melting behavior will be, surely > mixtures of ethanol/water can only be better than water alone. Not necessarily. I couldn't find the heat capacity of ethanol ice, but the heat capacity of ethanol liquid at -100'C is similar to water ice at that temperature. Since heat capacities typically drop after freezing, I would expect the heat capacity of ethanol ice to be less than water ice. It is therefore likely that the heat capacity of ethanol/water ice is also less than that of water ice alone. If so, and if the melting of ethanol/water ice is really fuzzy, it is quite possible that less energy would be required to warm ethanol/water from -130'C to -110'C than water ice alone. (I am using -110'C as a benchmark because Mike Darwin tells me that vitrified patients risk devitrification above this temperature.) > There must be some minimum mix of ethanol with water that isn't > flammable at all. Distilled liquors, which are typically 40-50% > ethanol, will not burn. This is a very useful observation. Perhaps we can use it without actually mixing the ethanol and water together. What if we stored our ethanol cannisters submerged in barrels of water? Surely fire marshals would not complain about ethanol stored in solid blocks of water ice! We then get all the advantages of pure ethanol, and extra water ice ballast to boot. --- Brian Wowk Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2123