Ice is not always cold. In a recent experiment, researchers discovered superionic ice with temperatures up to thousands of degrees Celsius.
It can be said that this is almost like searching for ice on the surface of the sun. This type of ice with a temperature of several thousand degrees Celsius is completely different from the ice in the freezer compartment. A team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the United States used extremely sophisticated laboratory equipment to create this hot rock over the course of four years.
The first step is to compress the ultrapure water using a device called a “diamond anvil cell”. The device is like a compact version of a press (since it is less than 1 mm in length), and it can keep the water between the diamonds unchanged without distortion.
The pressure it creates can be as much as 2.5 billion Pascals, nearly 25,000 times the standard atmospheric pressure, making liquid water solid ice at 25°C.
At normal temperature, the motion of water molecules is uneven, and the amplitude of their motion increases with increasing temperature, so that under normal conditions water is a liquid.
Water only freezes at 0°C under standard atmospheric pressure. (Photo: ITZONE)
Only when the temperature drops to 0°C, will the water molecules slowly move to form stronger bonds between the water molecules, thereby fixing their relative positions, so now water will form ice. . However, water only freezes at 0°C under standard atmospheric pressure. As pressure changes, the temperature at which water freezes can change.
The water molecules in the diamond anvil will form stronger bonds due to more pressure. However, the similarity between ice formed this way and regular ice is limited to appearance: the water molecules in the former layer are more closely arranged and 60% higher in density than in the previous layer. after.
But until now, researchers have been able to create hot ice, and it can solidify at high temperatures, which is also known as “superionic ice”. The production of superionic ice requires the use of a laser, six lasers to be exact.
The researchers sent the stones in a diamond anvil made with pure water to the Laser Energy Laboratory (LLE) of the University of Rochester, USA, and placed the entire device in the center of a sphere. 3.3m in diameter, then place the iceberg between the two diamonds.
This block will then be irradiated by 6 UV lasers. The irradiation lasts only for an extremely short period of time, about 1 nanosecond (a billionth of a second). Although only for a short period of time, it has enough power to generate up to 1 trillion watts of power.
Super ionic ice can only last for 20 nanoseconds. (Photo: ITZONE)
This enormous energy is converted into shock waves that penetrate the ice crust and increase the pressure of the compressed ice, so it can withstand pressures 2 million times atmospheric pressure.
In addition to the extreme pressure, the energy provided by the laser beam will significantly increase the temperature of the ice mass to at least 1700°C. This is a necessary condition for the preparation of superionic ice. The explanation would be rather lengthy, but the entire experiment could only last 20 nanoseconds, and after the shock wave passed, the diamond anvil and the superionic ice would evaporate almost instantly.
As a result, the researchers were only able to observe the superionic ice for a short period of time. But they succeeded in “seeing” the superionic ice. They also use extremely high-speed cameras that can take pictures of 1000 pixels every 20 picoseconds.
With this device, researchers have successfully discovered the secret of superionic tape’s electrical conductivity. In the ultrasonic state, the tape can conduct electricity!
In fact, the researchers guessed this feature before conducting the experiment, because theoretical research on superionic ice has been done through computer simulations for nearly 30 years.
According to the corresponding model, ice does not release electrons under these experimental conditions, but it does release hydrogen atoms in the water molecule. More precisely, it’s a hydrogen atom that has lost an electron: retaining only protons, which are positively charged particles that make up the hydrogen nucleus.
To better understand this phenomenon, we need to look at this particular block of ice. At the atomic level, ice is a crystalline solid: all the molecules that make up ice are arranged in a certain pattern.
When ice changes from one form to another, the arrangement of its molecules also changes. When we compress them under high pressure, the molecules with their cubic structure are forced to reorganize and shorten the intermolecular distances, so that some hydrogen atoms can move between molecules. water.
The hydrogen atom will give up its original electrons during motion, thus becoming a movable proton. In superionic ice, the phenomenon is more obvious: greater pressure shortens the distance between molecules, and extreme heat provides a lot of energy, so all the protons move.
The oxygen atoms in this water molecule form are still arranged in the original way, but the protons are not stopped moving.
As a result, these positively charged particles can move slowly, which is why superionic ice can conduct electricity. In addition to confirming the theoretical predictions, the preparation and observation of superionic ice in the laboratory will also help to explain the mysteries of Uranus and Neptune, as these two planets have a dominant composition. Water is weak.
Uranus and Neptune are composed mainly of water. (Photo: ITZONE)
Based on their sizes (Uranus is about 51,000 km in diameter, Neptune is about 49,000 km in diameter), physicists estimate that superionic ice can only be found in the extremely atmosphere. density of these two planets as they pass about 8,000 km.
The researchers further speculate that the interior of Uranus and Neptune is a solid shell consisting of a super-thick layer of ice. This structure could explain the extremely special magnetic fields of these two planets: instead of having two magnetic poles like the earth, they have four magnetic poles.
But so far, research has only stopped at the above steps, Uranus and Neptune are not made of pure water, they also contain ammonia and methane … If these impurities are added, then ice How efficiently will super ions work? All answers can only wait and the next experiments will answer.