An Interesting Experiment of Sorts

[The Lone Ranger]

So, I usually take some bottled water with me for long driving trips. Last weekend, I absent-mindedly bought a bottle of water while filling the gas tank, neglecting the fact that I already had a half-full bottle in the car. So, right now, I have two half-full bottles of water in the car.

They're the same brand. They're the same size. Approximately the same amount has been drunk from both. The bottles are essentially identical, so far as I can tell. The temperatures haven't gone above freezing in over a week.

So, I noted that one of the bottles was frozen solid this morning when I got in the car. The other bottle didn't have so much as a fleck of ice in it.


Those of you who've had much chemistry are probably familiar with the phenomenon of "freezing point depression," whereby dissolving substances in water lowers its freezing point. This is why saltwater freezes at a much lower temperature than does fresh water.

My hypothesis is that Bottle #2 has a rather higher concentration of something in it than does Bottle #1. Makes you wonder about the quality-control process at the bottling company, doesn't it?

Cheers,

Michael

[viscousmemories]

Well I just learned a lot about bottled water regulation at the federal, state and industry level (did you know some bottled water is - legally - plain old 'tap' water?), but I wasn't able to figure out what might be in the non-freezing water.

[Ymir's blood]

As Vm says, bottled water can come from pretty much any source. A lot of it probably comes from spring water, which is going to contain sediment. Perhaps the water in the frozen bottle came from a tank which had been sitting longer, and the sediment had settled to the bottom. Perhaps the bottling plant has more than one source of water.

Another thing to consider is the positions of the bottles in the vehicle. If one is exposed to sunlight and the other isn't, the could be a substantial difference in the water temperature.

[JoeP]

Does dissolved air change the freezing point? Not as far as I know, but if it does, the bottle sitting there longer might have lost more air (even into the airspace in the bottle, assuming you kept them tightly capped).

When you take the bottles to the lab for analysis, ask them to check also for the amount of saliva that might have backwashed into the bottles. :bleh:

[viscousmemories]

Dissolved air? :chin:

[xouper]

Dissolved air? :chin:
Yeah, that's what the fish in your aquarium breathe, which is why such tanks have air bubbling through them, so that some of it dissolves in the water for the fish to breathe.

http://www.mrcirl.org/marker/marker1801/0601.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarium

Also, carbonated beverages are called that because they contain dissolved carbon dioxide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonated

[JoeP]

Does that explain it adequately for you, vm? :P

[viscousmemories]

Oh. My. God.

I seriously always thought the purpose of the bubbler in the aquarium was to replicate a natural environment by making ripples.

:blush:

[Sweetie]

Oh. My. God.

I seriously always thought the purpose of the bubbler in the aquarium was to replicate a natural environment by making ripples.

:blush:

I learned this first hand. :D The bubbler would drive me nuts all night so I'd turn it off at night and on in the morning, the fish got a little sick. :(

[wei yau]

My hypothesis is that Bottle #2 has a rather higher concentration of something in it than does Bottle #1. Makes you wonder about the quality-control process at the bottling company, doesn't it?


JoeP said it first, but my first suspect was backwash. Perhaps you were enjoying some tasty salty snacks or french frieds when drinking from Bottle #2.

[livius drusus]

Okay can we move on from the backwash theory? :verysick:

[wei yau]

Interestingly enough, when drinking some water to wash down my mayo stuffing orgy (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=31410&postcount=9), I did notice some floating white specks of mayo in the glass...each globule was surrounded by a slowly spreading skin of grease...

[livius drusus]

You're an evil, evil man, eldar. Besides, no way you were drinking water with your spooge sandwich.

Okay. Thread. Topic. Right. Does the water label yield any clues of what the trace elements might be, Michael?

[xouper]

Does the water label yield any clues of what the trace elements might be, Michael?
I would assume, in addition to whatever else, there were at least a few million molecules of arsenic, but I doubt that would be on the label.

[Socratoad]

Oh. My. God.

I seriously always thought the purpose of the bubbler in the aquarium was to replicate a natural environment by making ripples.

:blush:

I learned this first hand. :D The bubbler would drive me nuts all night so I'd turn it off at night and on in the morning, the fish got a little sick. :(


Of coarse the amount of oxygen in your aquarium is greatly affected by the surface area of the water and the number of fish in the aquarium. It really should not have affected the fish overnight unless you have a very small aquarium or your tank is overstocked. What kind of fish do you have?

I really hope this is not derailing the thread.

[Socratoad]

So, I usually take some bottled water with me for long driving trips. Last weekend, I absent-mindedly bought a bottle of water while filling the gas tank, neglecting the fact that I already had a half-full bottle in the car. So, right now, I have two half-full bottles of water in the car.

They're the same brand. They're the same size. Approximately the same amount has been drunk from both. The bottles are essentially identical, so far as I can tell. The temperatures haven't gone above freezing in over a week.

So, I noted that one of the bottles was frozen solid this morning when I got in the car. The other bottle didn't have so much as a fleck of ice in it.


Those of you who've had much chemistry are probably familiar with the phenomenon of "freezing point depression," whereby dissolving substances in water lowers its freezing point. This is why saltwater freezes at a much lower temperature than does fresh water.

My hypothesis is that Bottle #2 has a rather higher concentration of something in it than does Bottle #1. Makes you wonder about the quality-control process at the bottling company, doesn't it?

Cheers,

Michael

I really hope there is a plausible reason for the difference between the two bottles of water, other than the distasteful suspicion that popped instantly into my mind.

I'm very skeptical about the quality of much of the bottled water being peddled.

Its hard to imagine what people of the generation before mine would think about the proliferation of bottled waters available today. Methinks they would think the world had gone stark raving mad, considering that even when I was a small boy one could safely drink from almost every stream and most lakes without ill effect.

[livius drusus]

I would assume, in addition to whatever else, there were at least a few million molecules of arsenic, but I doubt that would be on the label.

He he... Probably not. Still even if it is your basic ground water, at least Michael is in Washington. From here (http://nationalatlas.gov/natlas/natlasstart.asp):

http://www.freethought-forum.com/images/Maps/arsenic.jpg

[JoeP]

Okay can we move on from the backwash theory? :verysick:
"Say what you think" it says up there. Strictly, the backwash possibility is quite a viable hypothesis until ruled out objectively, so we should continue to discuss it. Unless it violates a FF rule. Perhaps: "You may not post any messages or perform any action that impairs the functioning of the Freethought Forum." So, would impairing liv's functioning impair the functioning of the forum? Presumably vm would be able to fill any necessary admin duties until the dry heaves have subsided.

[livius drusus]

Depends on whether smiley uploads qualify as integral to site functionality. :assembly:

[Dingfod]

The unfrozen bottle probably had more pressure in it. I've seen it lots of times. If that bottle of water that didn't freeze were to be uncapped while still that cold, it would probably instantly turn to slush. That's exactly what happened that one day at our family reunion in Taos when my youngest brother had forgotten a bottle of Dr Pepper was in the freezer... for a half day. The bottle's contents were completely liquid when he pulled it out of the freezer and he wondered out loud how that could be. I told him to open it and watch. Sure enough, instant Dr Pepper slushie.


As for bottled water quality, one bottle from the same company should pretty much be the same as another bottle. I don't know about the various brands other than Dasani (Coca-cola) or Aquafina (Pepsi), but the water in those two is the same water as they use to make the soda pop that they bottle. The purification steps taken by both companies:

Prefiltration - filtering out the big stuff, stuff larger than 10 microns or so.
High intensity light treatment - to kill any bacteria that might get past the filters.
Charcoal filtration - to remove any hydrocarbon residues like alcohol or formaldehyde which can damage the reverse osmosis membrane and you don't really want in your water anyway.
Oxygenation - because plain old R.O. water or distilled water is pretty flat and unappealing in taste.
Dasani is additionally enhanced with minerals (bromides?) for taste, but I don't sure that Aquafina is.

I cannot tell the difference between my undersink R.O. filtered water and Aquafina. Neither taste like Tulsa tap water, which has a fishy, moldy, stale taste, like pond water. There is a little something different in Dasani, something making it taste like mountain stream water. It tastes good, reminds me of the water we had when I lived in Southwest Colorado, water from the Dolores River, filtered through about 20 feet of sand and pumped out of wells and 685 feet uphill to the town.

In Utah, we had the privilege of drinking the best bottled water in the whole world, Mount Olympus Water (http://www.mowi.com/about_us.htm). From that page, they describe their source of water and the treatment they put it through, preserving the natural mineralized taste. Gawd, I miss that water... that and the tap water in that little town in Colorado. They don't have that water any more, not since the Bureau of Reclamation put an irrigation ditch all the way to town, delivering drinking water from McPhee Reservoir instead. Lake water? Yuck. That's what we have in Tulsa.

I'm not a water purification expert, but I played one in real life for a half decade or so, running demineralization systems that treated ordinary well water down to zero conductivity (no mineral content at all) for high pressure boiler systems. That water was pure as could be, but tasted like... like... well, nothing, just wet... and flat.

[wei yau]

Great post, warrenly. Very informative and interesting. I give it a 9. I'd give a 10, but there was no mention of backwash.

[Dingfod]

Backwash isn't important... unless you are drinking after someone else. My friend Tyler used to beg for a swig of my soda pop and I would invariably give him one, but with the admonition "No backwash!"

[The Lone Ranger]

Finally, the other bottle of water has frozen!

As far as I can tell, neither was exposed to sunlight, nor was either of them any closer to the vehicle's heating system. Most peculiar.

Since they're (supposedly) spring water, Ymir's blood's suggestion that the water from Bottle "A" hadn't been settling as long before it was bottled seems plausible. It could be that they're under different amounts of pressure, too; I didn't vent Bottle "B" before it eventually froze to see what would happen. (On a side note, supercooling is a really neat phenomenon -- I remember supercooling liquids in physics classes then dropping in a single crystal and watching the substance freeze almost instantly. On a related note, I once accidentally superheated some water in the microwave, only to have it boil when I poured some cocoa mix in -- ouch!)

I had no idea how lax the labeling standards for bottled water can be!


I'm tempted to take the bottles to the chemistry department to see if I can sweet-talk someone into running samples through a mass spectrometer.

Cheers,

Michael

[viscousmemories]

I thought that was a really interesting post too Warren. I've had both Dasani and Aquafina, but for some reason Aquafina is my first choice whenever it's available and all I really know of it is that it never tastes funny, and some bottled waters have tasted funny to me.

One of several times I was almost coerced into direct sales by a sibling was for the purpose of promoting an under-the-sink charcoal filtration system. As part of my training for the job I was encouraged to focus on some tenuous links (this was 15 years ago, not sure how tenuous anymore) between chlorine and cancer, and then do a pool chlorine test on the tap water.

Sure enough, the tap water in Ann Arbor at the time had something like twice the chlorine content required for a swimming pool, apparently left in the water at the treatment plant. For a long time after that I couldn't run the tap without smelling the chlorine in the water, and I couldn't drink it anymore.

And to this day I'm uncomfortable drinking tap water anywhere. I always use a Brita filter, fridge based filter, or drink bottled water. And when I drink tap water I'm afraid I'm gonna get a bacteria or something... :yuck:

[viscousmemories]

I'm tempted to take the bottles to the chemistry department to see if I can sweet-talk someone into running samples through a mass spectrometer.
Ohhh, you should totally do that. It would be like this one time on another forum when a cop had one of the other forum members send him a speck of blood he found on his apartment floor to get analyzed by the lab. I love the detective stuff.

[The Lone Ranger]

I always filter the water here in Pullman before I drink it -- you can clearly taste (and see!) the difference between filtered and unfiltered tap water.

The soil here is so fine that particles must be able to get through the filters they use at the treatment plant; after a good, hard rain, the water coming out of the tap is noticably yellow-brown in color. I'm sure it's perfectly safe to drink, but still. Yuck!

Cheers,

Michael

[Ensign Steve]

Sure enough, the tap water in Ann Arbor at the time had something like twice the chlorine content required for a swimming pool, apparently left in the water at the treatment plant. For a long time after that I couldn't run the tap without smelling the chlorine in the water, and I couldn't drink it anymore.

And to this day I'm uncomfortable drinking tap water anywhere. I always use a Brita filter, fridge based filter, or drink bottled water. And when I drink tap water I'm afraid I'm gonna get a bacteria or something... :yuck:

Silly, the chlorine in the water is for killing the bacteria. :P

[viscousmemories]

Silly, the chlorine in the water is for killing the bacteria. :P
Hey, I knew that! Sorry, the two ideas were disconnected. I was once afraid of the water 'cause of the chlorine, now I'm just afraid of the water period. :eek:

[Dingfod]

Tulsa "treats" the shit (literally?) out of their water with chlorine, sometimes the chlorine smell is really bad in the shower.

Back in my Laboratory Retriever days (my nick in the plant) I tested people's tap and well water for free, mostly with wet chemistry tests and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry. In those days, with no water softener or filter, my own tap water had actual flecks of lime floating around in it, a calcium hardness of 350-375 mg/L. Anything under 100 mg/L is considered relatively soft water by everyone but the water softener industry.

[wildernesse]

And to this day I'm uncomfortable drinking tap water anywhere. I always use a Brita filter, fridge based filter, or drink bottled water. And when I drink tap water I'm afraid I'm gonna get a bacteria or something... :yuck:

MMmm, well water. I think my parents may have a charcoal filter, but they may not. Delish, non-treated water. Makes you strong. On another side note, I'm glad that the map livius linked to showed Georgia nice and green where they tested. Woohoo!

This is an interesting thread, I wish I had been reading it all along.

[JoeP]

So, Michael, no verdict yet? Were these carbonated water? If not, I don't see how they could be at different pressures, unless they were subject to different heating at some point, which you have ruled out.

[livius drusus]

The smilie whores have been corralled here (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1465). Pardon the derail.

[Dingfod]

So, Michael, no verdict yet? Were these carbonated water? If not, I don't see how they could be at different pressures, unless they were subject to different heating at some point, which you have ruled out.How tightly the bottle was squeezed when the lid was sealed can make a lot of difference in how much pressure is in the bottle, anywhere from a slight vacuum to atmospheric pressure, a pressure that may increase as the temperature approaches freezing, or lower as in this particular case. Most substances expand as the temperature is increased, and water does too, except between its freezing point, 0 C and 4 C. Inside that range, water expands as it cools, becoming less dense. Heating water that is near freezing can actually cause it to contract rather than expand. Depending on the amount of water in the container, this unique property of water can cause an increase in the volume of water that exceeds that of the decreasing volume of the cooled air in the bottle.

Interestingly, in a body of water like a lake or a pond, one would think the water at the bottom should be the coldest water because of convection, heat rising, cold sinking, except that most of the time it's not, because water near freezing is less dense than water even a few degrees warmer. In other words, water cold enough to freeze rises to the top or stays on top because it is less dense before it freezes. The pressure factor could be at work in a body of water too, water under pressure has a lower freezing point. Water at the bottom of a 40' deep lake would be about one atmosphere higher pressure than water at the surface.

[JoeP]

ow tightly the bottle was squeezed when the lid was sealed can make a lot of difference in how much pressure is in the bottle, anywhere from a slight vacuum to atmospheric pressure, a pressure that may increase as the temperature approaches freezing, or lower as in this particular case. Most substances expand as the temperature is increased, and water does too, except between its freezing point, 0 C and 4 C. Inside that range, water expands as it cools, becoming less dense. Heating water that is near freezing can actually cause it to contract rather than expand. Depending on the amount of water in the container, this unique property of water can cause an increase in the volume of water that exceeds that of the decreasing volume of the cooled air in the bottle.

Interestingly, in a body of water like a lake or a pond, one would think the water at the bottom should be the coldest water because of convection, heat rising, cold sinking, except that most of the time it's not, because water near freezing is less dense than water even a few degrees warmer. In other words, water cold enough to freeze rises to the top or stays on top because it is less dense before it freezes. The pressure factor could be at work in a body of water too, water under pressure has a lower freezing point. Water at the bottom of a 40' deep lake would be about one atmosphere higher pressure than water at the surface.
Dang, warn, that thing about squeezing the bottle should have been obvious. Nevertheless, I bow to your amazing knowledge of water (in this and your earlier post).

Do you know the chemistry or physics of why water expands when it freezes?

[Dingfod]

Do you know the chemistry or physics of why water expands when it freezes?No, but I'm willing to look into it. I'm betting on something to do with crystalline structure bonds or something like that. I'll get back to you on that.

[Crumb]

My guess is that the one that didn't freeze had more urine in it. Maybe the bottling plant employees were a little more disgruntled that day.

[Godless Wonder]

Someone brought up a mass spectrometer. Back in the '70's my dad worked for a company in Florida doing mass spectrometer analysis of various things. One of the things he still talks about to this day is the time he got some Miami tap water for analysis. I don't remember what was in it, but as I said, he was so unfavorably impressed that he still talks about the bad Miami water. (He hasn't lived in Florida since 1979.) Well, I hope it's gotten better since then.

[Godless Dave]

So, Michael, no verdict yet? Were these carbonated water? If not, I don't see how they could be at different pressures, unless they were subject to different heating at some point, which you have ruled out.

He opened them on different days, so the outside air pressure could have been different.

(In addition to all the stuff Warren said).