“One alien ice, Ice X, doesn’t melt until it reaches 3,700 °F”
“STOP! Collaborate and listen.” Ice is back at it again with the hydrogen bonds in one of its seventeen or more forms known as Ice X!
Billy: FREEZE SON. Wat da heck is Ice X about, boi? Bob: Listen, bro. Hold onto your hydrogen bonds cause I’m about to drop some sick chemistry beats on ya (AIR HORN sound effects).
So, as Billy asked, what in the world is Ice X? Well, ever heard of ice (please say yes. If you haven’t, then you need to get out more)? To put it in scientific terms, ice is the solid formation of dihydrogen monoxide in which the tetrahedral-shaped water molecules are bonded together to make a crystalline lattice, or patterned, structure. A Tetrahedral-shaped structure is one in which the molecules are connected to each other with four bonds forming from the central atom. As a result, each oxygen atom in ice’s inner molecular structure has the appearance of a tetrahedral with four hydrogen atoms equidistantly bonded to the center. In order to make Ice X (the “X” represents the roman numeral for “ten”), the standard structure of ice is altered by exerting a ton of pressure to move its atoms around, which I’ll explain later on. Ice generally takes many different physical forms, such as hard combined crystals (ice cubes) or as loosely combined particles (snow). However, there’s more than meets the eye. Structurally, ice can take up to 17 different forms or more (I say “or more” because there’s speculation that there are still more ice formations out there that haven’t been discovered yet). This is based on how its ordered H2O molecules change in their atomic arrangement as more pressure is applied to the structure, whether it be from the atmosphere or by force in a laboratory.
Inside ice’s molecular structure, each oxygen is bonded to the two hydrogens and the two lone pairs of another H2O molecules’ oxygen. This forms the tetrahedral shape of ice molecules. These molecules aren’t rigid as there are still repulsions occurring from the bonds and lone pairs. That’s why when temperature and pressure are applied to ice, the particles move about and can create different orientations that correspond to different forms of ice. However, many of them are metastable, or stable for only a short period of time, and can only be made in a lab under specific conditions. Most of the ice discovered belong to a group where they are indicated by a roman numeral, but there are still many other forms out there that belong to their own separate categories. These include amorphous forms, which have less of an ordered, crystalline structure, and superionic forms, which have oxygen atoms in ordered patterns with hydrogen atoms that move freely around them.
In order for Ice X to form, one needs to exert at least 60 GPa of pressure for the hydrogen atoms to be moved between the oxygen atoms. As you can see, it’s no easy feat to forcefully make Ice X. As far as research goes, the only information gained about Ice X has come from indirect methods such as Brillouin, or Infrared Spectroscopy. This is a method used to discover the functional groups present in molecules (atoms are detected based on how they vibrate in the presence of infrared light) and is done using an instrument known as a spectrophotometer. As more pressure is applied, the hydrogen atoms move in and become equally bonded between the oxygen atoms in the crystalline lattice. The shape of the structure is in body-centered cubic form, with strong bonds resulting in high melting points. As a result, Ice X is said to be generally stable at very high temperatures, which is why it doesn’t melt until it reaches a temperature of around 3,700 °F! Imagine putting that ice in your water and waiting for the ice cubes to melt (which would most likely never happen unless you like to drink water that’s hot enough to burn your tongue off)!
The different types of ice can be found mostly in laboratories or even as far out as in space. It has been thought that Ice X might exist in the interiors of the giant, icy gas planets in our solar system like in Uranus and Neptune. Based on Ice X’s uniqueness in structure, it’s not a type that you would normally see in nature.
And there you have it. There’s more to ice than what you see sitting inside your glass of water (or whatever you drink...Stay sober my friends). The next time you look at ice, maybe take a look at its molecular structure and think about Ice X and the many other unique structures of ice that exist in our world (unless you don’t want to, then that’s totally fine :) ).
The End
