SellaTheChemistIf anyone is into #StrangeIce my friend and colleague Christoph Salzmann and I will be talking about one of the strangest of strange ices on BBC World Service's Inside Science later tonight, with additional ice talk from Europa and beyond. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct36b9
Our #StrangeIce paper is out in Science. Medium density amorphous ice. It doesn’t float. It doesn’t sink. The density is like water yet the atoms cannot move. It’s made by ball milling “normal” ice at -200 degrees and has lost almost all trace of its original crystalline structure. And if you squeeze it, it stores mechanical energy, an observation that may have implications for worlds like Europa where tidal forces drive mechanical shearing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq2105
Martin Whitworth@sellathechemist Really interested and will notify my father, co-author of https://global.oup.com/academic/product/physics-of-ice-9780198518952?cc=gb&lang=en&. Heard the BBC World Service item. Shame no open access (I could rant about that), so I have only seen the abstract. Congratulations to you, Christoph and 1st author Alexander Russo-Finsen. I’m familiar with ball milling from my cereals work.
Physics of Ice
Ice is one of the most abundant and environmentally important materials on Earth, and its unique and intriguing physical properties present fascinating areas of study for a wide variety of researchers. This book is about the physics of ice, by which is meant the properties of the material itself and the ways in which these properties are interpreted in terms of water molecules and crystalline structure.
@Martin_Whitworth It’s the ball milled salami I’m curious about
@sellathechemist Salami?! Tell me more. We’ve used a ball mill for wheat flour. It’s a great way of creating starch damage, although not used at commercial scale. Starch damage is a process that increases water absorption, achieved by shear of starch granules. It decreases birefringence (Maltese cross effects under crossed polars) and crystallinity.
@Martin_Whitworth The kit used was a Retsch Cryomill designed to reduce nduja, cervelas or sucuk to a fine dust by milling at -200 degrees. 😂 Maybe we should for medium density amorphous bratwurst next!