Light Ice, Heavy Water

Water floats when it's frozen, but what happens after it melts?

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You know that materials have different densities. For a perfect, amazing example of how to demonstrate these different densities, check out our 9 Layer Density Column. You can see that honey and lamp oil have completely different densities, and so do the liquids and solids in between them. All those materials seem to have a set density, but did you know that you can change the density of some materials? We'll show you a cool way to see a change of density in action with the Light Ice, Heavy Water experiment.

Materials

Baby oil
Vegetable oil
Ice cubes
Food coloring
Clear, empty container(A drinking glass will work great)

Videos

Experiment
Reviews

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Experiment

Add two drops of food coloring to a clear, empty container.
Fill half of the container with vegetable oil and fill the remainder of the container (leave just a little bit of space) with baby oil.
Take a moment to notice how the two oils mix together. It may be hard to tell, but the vegetable oil settles below the baby oil.
Once you're ready, gently drop an ice cube into the container. It sits right in the middle of the container without sinking to the bottom or floating to the top!
Now you've come to the tough part… waiting. You need to be patient to observe the magic of the experiment. Trust us… it's definitely worth it.
After a little while, you'll see a single drop begin to melt away from the ice cube. It looks like it is frozen in time as it clings to the ice cube until the very end.
Unlike the ice cube itself, the drop of water eventually sinks straight to the bottom of the glass.
As the ice cube melts, drop after drop of water head to the bottom of the container, mixing with the food coloring.

How Does It Work?

The basis of the Light Ice, Heavy Water experiment relies on density. Density = mass ÷ volume, which essentially equates to how many atoms are within a certain space. It is tough to see, but when you add baby oil to the vegetable oil in the container, the baby oil settles on top of the vegetable oil. This is because baby oil is a less-dense liquid than vegetable oil. That's where water comes in to the picture.

As you likely know, ice cubes are frozen bricks of water. What you may not know, is that water reacts unlike almost every other material on earth when it freezes - it becomes less dense. That's right! Other than water and some types of rubber, materials become more dense when they cool and freeze. As you can see in the Light Ice, Heavy Water experiment, however, ice is actually less dense than water and vegetable oil. Pretty, cool, and pretty cool!

Customer Reviews

Our ice did not float either :( Review by Sarah

I'm not sure what we did wrong, but our ice also did not float. We will try again another time, but we'll need to get more baby oil.

(Posted on March 27, 2013)

ice floats, water sinks Review by gloria

My students will be "doing this demo" tomorrow, then trying to figure out why the ice floats, but the water sinks..... can't wait.

(Posted on March 3, 2013)

The ice didn't float :( Review by Kebai

My son wanted to do this for his science fair. The first time was a success & we took pix for the demo. Then he tested it four more times because he has to present it to the students in his school - all four times failed! The ice does not float. Why? Can someone help?

(Posted on March 24, 2013)

The ice floated Review by G. VanHatten

I put it gently in the water you have to let it set. We used mineral oil, which is the same as baby oil, no fragrance. We tried a vegetable and canola oil blend, it didn't work. When we tried again we used 100% vegetable oil and then it worked.

(Posted on April 21, 2013)

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Steve Spangler Science