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Freezing properties of materials


Tipex
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Ok bit of an odd one this but i'd like some opinions, educated or otherwise, on the freezability (not an actual word I'm sure) of sugar glass.

Generally, liquids expand and solids contract when freezing, but is sugar glass a solid or liquid? Glass itself is a super cooled liquid, but not sure about sugar glass?

Her plan is to fill it with wine and freeze it, there by creating a wine lolly that can be safely smashed out of the bottle without the risk of shards of real glass in the lolly (apparently it's a scene from Black Books she is recreating for her sisters birthday).

Obviously I've told her not to fill it completely and not seal the top, so the wine has space to expand in to without breaking the bottle.

We just aren't sure how the sugar glass will behave itself when frozen, it's very fragile, and I'm worried it will try and contract and then crack.

Anyone got an idea?

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Just to correct the original statement, water expands when it freezes.  Most other materials (including liquids other than water) contract when they cool or freeze.  Water is the exception due to [... I could go on but trust me, you don't want me to]

 

So she will indeed need to leave plenty of room, as the wine will expand but the sugar glass will contract.  As said above, experimentation is the key. 

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At 25 f*cking quid per bottle, not including the wine, there will be as little experimentation as possible!

And yes Mr P you are correct, water rather than liquids.

One of my mates has a degree in advance materials (or something like that) and I almost fell asleep while he was trying to tell me what would happen, he still never gave me a solid answer either. :rolleyes:

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At 25 f*cking quid per bottle, not including the wine, there will be as little experimentation as possible!

And yes Mr P you are correct, water rather than liquids.

One of my mates has a degree in advance materials (or something like that) and I almost fell asleep while he was trying to tell me what would happen, he still never gave me a solid answer either. :rolleyes:

 

Do one that is half full, then.  Mark where the wine went up to.  Freeze it, then measure where the frozen wine reached.  That tells you the ratio.  Do some maths, then you know where you can fill it to.  Simples +++

 

A client once asked me whether I ever gave a simple straight answer to a simple straight question.  Without thinking, I replied that it depended on the question.  Not my finest moment.

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For anyone that's interested, we have an answer, sort of.

We still don't know if you can freeze sugar glass or not, because it didn't even get as far as the freezer.

Turns out you can't fill them with wine, the half filled bottle shattered under the weight of the wine, £25 down the drain, told Mrs T she won't be buying any more to play with, instead I bought the cheapest plastic bottle of wine I could find, decanted it, cut the bottom off, refilled it and proped it up in the freezer.

Ok, so they won't be able to 'break' it out the bottle, but it should come out fairly easily.

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Unfortunately the wine has separated, Mrs T wanted to use Rosè and it's now half a bottle of water, and half a bottle of red. :rolleyes:

I think some duct tape to form a temporary seal will do it, and if we remember to rotate the bottle a few times during freezing we should be ok.

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