• Question: what happens when you mix liquid nitrogen with a flower? would it shatter or something like that?

    Asked by supahhotfire to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 14 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 14 Jun 2012:

      Hi supahhotfire. Flowers contain a lot of water which would instantly freeze when it touches liquid nitrogen which is -196 oC. It wouldn’t shatter straight away but it will be very brittle and will probably shatter if you touch it or if you leave it to warm up, because when things warm up they expand and this would make it shatter. Thanks for your question.

    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hiay Supahhot – Will has again expertly answered your question. Just wanted to add I remember my physics teacher at school getting a flower stuck in the liqud nitrogen pot when he was trying to demonstrate this – he stuck it in too far too quickly, so the end of the flower bent over and froze in a Z shape and then wouldn’t fit through the neck of hte container. In the end the flowwer head snapped off in the container but he spilt some of the liquid N2 over the desk and it kind of fizzled its way over the desk before evaporating.

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hi supahhotfire, good question 🙂

      As Will/Karen have said it would instantly freeze but probably wouldn’t shatter until you touched it. But if you left it to warm up again I don’t think it would shatter, it just look like a wilted flower!

      We use liquid nitrogen all the time in the lab to freeze and preserve brains quickly, but we coat the brains in a cryoprotectant first to prevent ice crystals forming in cells of the brain as this would cause them to be damaged & burst.

    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 17 Jun 2012:

      Hi supahhotfire! If you dip a flower in liquid nitrogen, and then tap it against something, it breaks into lots of little pieces, indeed. You can do lots of other cool things with liquid nitrogen – can you tell me what you can make out of these things?

      You’ll need: big plastic bowl, gloves, googles, plastic whisk, scoop,

      ingredients: single cream, strawberry smoothy, sugar, liquid nitrogen

      whisk everything together, then add liquid nitrogen and keep whisking – very carefully!

      My friend Ruth and I made this for our lab and everyone really liked it. Have you guessed what it is? 🙂

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