The ultimate guide to hot ice

Bog credits Yash Jangid

Sodium acetate is a chemical that can be supercooled, meaning it can remain a liquid below its normal freezing point. The amazing part of this reaction is initiating crystallization. Hot ice’ is created using sodium acetate, which is a salt created from the reaction between sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, and acetic acid, or vinegar.To create it, first, you simply need to mix distilled vinegar with baking soda, let it react and what results from this is sodium acetate (CH33OONa), a colourless, non-toxic water soluble salt with incredible chemical properties. This product will be useful to obtain sodium acetate trihydrate, the so-called hot ice (CH33OONa⋅3⋅3H22O), which is just basically the same substance but now surrounded by three molecules of water.The production of sodium acetate is given by the following chemical reaction: CH33COOH + NaHCO33 ⟶⟶ CH33OONa + H22O + CO2Pour supercooled sodium acetate onto a surface and it will solidify as you watch, forming towers and other interesting shapes.This process is exothermic, meaning that the solid structure is warm to the touch.The chemical also is known as “hot ice” because the crystallization occurs at room temperature, producing crystals that resemble ice cubes.In industry, this substance (sodium acetate trihydrate) is actually used to keep tortillas warm inside a container or to heat gloves during the winter. You get to control when you want the tortillas hot, so it’s a neat (and crucially, non-toxic) way to keep food and freezing fingers warm.So do try Hot ice onceTry the experiment yourselfYou can try to form hot ice by doing what we described above. All the substances used are non-toxic. If you want to avoid using vinegar, you can buy the sodium acetate trihydrate in any store