Science Daily February 2, 2023
The new form of ice is amorphous. Unlike ordinary crystalline ice where the molecules arrange themselves in a regular pattern, in amorphous ice the molecules are in a disorganised form that resembles a liquid. Researchers in the UK created a new form of amorphous ice by grinding crystalline ice into small particles using metal balls in a steel jar. They created a novel amorphous form of ice which had a density similar to that of liquid water and whose state resembled water in solid form. They named the new ice medium-density amorphous ice (MDA). To understand the process at the molecular scale the team created a computational model of MDA. Using calorimetry, they found that when MDA recrystallises to ordinary ice it releases an extraordinary amount of heat which could play a role in activating tectonic motions. More broadly, this discovery shows water can be a high-energy geophysical material. The race is now on to understand how much of it is MDA and how geophysically active MDA is…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Part of the set-up for creating medium-density amorphous ice. Credit: Christoph Salzmann.