I missed this one from August last year: nano-scale "Hot" ice films caused by 1KV/mm electric field http://chem3.snu.ac.kr/~surfion/Himage/pdf/2005_PRL(freezing%20transition).pdf
In an STM microscope under water, apparently a solid ice barrier appears whenever the e-field strength between the tip and a gold surface is around 1KV/mm. They note that this is far below the 1MV/mm field predicted from simulations (1MV/mm is needed to force water to freeze as aligned dipoles in cubical array.) So water itself is "electrorheological?" 1KV/mm is not that large, so spontaneous-formed "hot ice" should occur naturally in many nano-scale situations. Shades of Polywater! Also, ice is an insulator, so such a "dielectric layer" created by strong e-fields might be expected to appear in the Helmholtz layer on metal surfaces and cause interesting nano-phenomena in electrolysis setups. Interesting paper, but I'd like to have seen a plot of the ice-forming e-field threshold versus initial temperature. As the temperature of the experiment is lowered, the e-field needed to create "hot ice" should drop, and it might vary in an interesting way. If it doesn't vary, then as with the Polywater controversy, the film may actually be some sort of gel network or other contamination, and not purely water. By coincidence, last August I wrote the below. (So, if we could make small rings of ice with strong internal e-field from an "electret" water effect, would the polarization persist, and the ice rings remain frozen at high temperature?) :) > http://amasci.com/news.html > More randomness. In the Vasserfadden demo below, how thin could the > water thread become? I should think that e-field forces would cause it > to resist evaporation, as with > http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/electric/electric.htm > electric ice needles. The water filament would be like an electret. > But if the thread broke, would it contract to form a droplet, or would > the applied e-field preserve the threadlike form? If it stayed > threadlike, this means we could build a network, an aerogel, from > nothing but water. The threads would be maintained by the strong > e-field (unless closed loops of electrified water filaments are also > stable, so the external power supply could be removed.) An > electrically-stablized aerogel made from water vapor would possibly > explain the observation of http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html > invisible wall phenomena. > > The Wasserfadden experiment > http://amasci.com/freenrg/wasser.txt > > Giant natural water-thread? > http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/wasser.txt ((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty http://staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/ Research Engineer UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700 ph:206-543-6195 fax:206-685-8665
