X-Message-Number: 31962
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:31:16 -0700
Subject: Re: > Message #31957 CAS freezing
From: Jeff Davis <>

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 2:00 AM, Brian Wowk wrote:

> Message #31957
> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:35:18 -0700
> Subject: CAS freezing
> From: Brian Wowk <>
>
>        Re:
>
> "One very simple demonstration of CAS freezing and how it prevents ice
> crystal formation is that it can freeze a full glass bottle of water.
> The water level remains the same, the glass does not break, and the
> water is crystal clear except for a few bubbles."
>
> This strains credulity.

I agree completely.  Strains it almost to the breaking point.  Almost.
 And if, as seems likely, it turns out to be bogus, then I'll be left
with egg on my face.

That said, ***something*** is going on here (probably marketing hype),
and I'd like to know what it is before tossing it aside with the usual
"It'll never work."

Re the "allegedly vitrified" glass of water:

The technical issue is whether pure water, if supercooled below its
freexing point by 7 deg C/ 12.6 deg F while being prevented from
"solidifying" into either an ordered crystalline solid (ice) or an
amorphous solid (vitrified water), putatively as the result of the
influence of an externally applied magnetic field, will upon sudden
removal of the magnetic field, "flash solidify" into a vitrified (ie
non-crystalline) state.

More generally this is about the rate of cooling -- cooling, which
will in any case eventually result in solidification -- versus the
rate of crystallization.  If you can cool faster than the rate of
crystallization -- such as in the cooling of molten silicate glass to
form what, in everyday parlance we call "glass" -- then you get a
glassy solid.

Under usual circumstances, bulk water -- larger than microscopic
particle size -- cannot easily be cooled faster than the rate of
crystallization.  But the Owada/ABI technique claims to circumvent
this limitation by putatively, with the instantaneous shut-off of the
magnetic field, creating an artificial condition, the virtual
equivalent of an instantaneous and infinitely large rate of cooling.
This infinite rate of cooling being applied, between zero and minus
seven degrees C,  just exactly the temperature range wherein water
solidifies. Thus, according to the theory we're considering, the
theory of the magnetic suppression of liquid-to-solid phase transition
in water, if you can jump (in a virtual sense) instantly from zero
degrees to minus seven degrees, rapidly cooling while simultaneously
avoiding the normal phase-change energy transfers associated with
crystallization, then the flash vitrification of bulk water could,
arguably be the result.

Since the Owada/ABI folks claim that result, one of the more direct
ways of confirming this would be to have the Owada/ABI folks prove it.
 They make the claim, have the gear, and have every reason to want to
supply satisfactory confirmation.  And if true, I have got to think
that they have the evidence on hand and available.  Which is why I'm
attempting to contact them directly.  For this evidence, and further
technical details.

Alternatively, one can consult the patents filed re the CAS process,
extract the necessary details, and attempt to reproduce the claimed
result.  This of course entails some expense.

Or, if one seeks a more immediate "back of the envelope"
confirmation/falsification, one can ask how the heat of fusion of
vitrified water compares to the thermal energy of 7 deg C of
supercooling.

This last I leave to someone else (Brian?), though I intend a brief
Google search for the heat of fusion of vitrified water.

> If pure water could really solidify into a
> structure other than Ice 1h in macroscopic volumes at normal
> atmospheric pressure, we'd be reading about it in Nature magazine.
> CAS freezers have been around long enough for such a phenomenon to be
> noticed and published by Japanese physicists.

I tend to agree, and would slink silently away if I was more
embarrassment averse.

Best, Jeff Davis

 "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                     Ray Charles

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