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by Erin Albrecht on February 17th, 2006

Erin Albrecht

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How does liquid nitrogen cause materials to become brittle and shatter?

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  • by RedJohn on February 18th, 2006

    RedJohn

    Liquid nitrogen is extremely cold and has a boiling point of -196C. Anything immersed in liquid nitrogen freezes very quickly, including items that we are unfamiliar with handling in a frozen state. It is not the liquid nitrogen that makes the materials brittle, it is the extreme cold. (A similar effect can be obtained using dry ice and acetone.)

    Some materials are naturally brittle in their solid state (i.e., 'frozen'), because of their internal structure. We don't normally think of a sheet of (brittle) glass as 'frozen' in the way we think of water becoming ice, but the change in state from liquid to solid is a freezing process.

    Any object that contains appreciable amounts of water will become brittle when their water content freezes. This is the reason why frozen fruit can shatter when struck with a hammer: it is mostly ice, which is brittle.

    Some materials contain compounds that are pliable at room temperature, but harden and become brittle as the temperature falls. Many synthetic materials used in commercial products contain plasticizers or are made from polymers whose properties change when exposed to extreme cold. These temperatures lie outside the normal working range of use of these products, approximately -50C to +50C or higher. Many plastics are quite brittle long before they reach -50C, let alone the -196C of liquid nitrogen.

    Other materials, including those that one would not normally consider brittle, may go through a phase change at lower temperatures that makes them brittle. This process is called low temperature embrittlement. It occurs in a number of metals with particular atomic structures, of which iron and iron alloys (e.g., various steels) are the most common. One unfortunate example of this was a grade of steel used in shipbuilding for a brief period in the early 20th century. It was discovered that it would become brittle at low temperatures (-10 to -20C), but only after a couple of ships broke up and sank in such weather conditions.

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    Re: "Glass is not solid. It is an extremely viscous liquid"
    I realize that, but it was used as an example of a very brittle material commonly found around the home. Those lovely ripples in very old glass were much less visible when the glass was first drawn, a manufacturing process rarely used today.

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    Re: "Text Book answer. Not original"
    Sorry mate, I write all of my answers from scratch. The only thing I had to look up for this answer was the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. If I use material from another source, I always cite the author and place any borrowed text in quotations. I have authored or co-authored over 60 technical reports and papers during my career in engineering R&D and I answer technical questions in a technical manner.

    Comments

    • dmoneythegreat

      by dmoneythegreat on February 20th, 2006

    • Just one nit to pick. Glass is not solid. It is an extremely viscus liquid.

      Glenn Blaylock

      by Glenn Blaylock on February 19th, 2006

    • Text Book answer. Not original.

      Mopar Racer

      by Mopar Racer on February 20th, 2006

    • "Not original"? Jeeze, when I make up stuff I get lwo rated. This answer was useful and correct.

      notmrjohn

      by notmrjohn on February 21st, 2006

    • Good up to the reply to feedback. useful

      anonymous

      by anonymous on February 21st, 2006

    • Excellent answer. Glenn is correct, though. Glass is a liquid, but not worth a rate-down. Full credit.

      gondola

      by gondola on February 21st, 2006

    • Is there anything that is generally considered brittle but when frozen becomes hard?

      Max Power

      by Max Power on February 22nd, 2006

    • People are getting ridiculous. The goal is to answer the question, not to entertain you. A+

      BaaBaaBlackSheep

      by BaaBaaBlackSheep on February 23rd, 2006

    • Glass is _NOT_ an extremely viscous liquid. It is an amorphous solid. For further reference you can look at : http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html

      BBoitano

      by BBoitano on January 11th, 2011

    • Glass is a substance that whose nature has been rather hard to define. When I was first getting my education, glass was considered to be a liquid. That is the light in which I made my original comment. However, in more recent years, the evidence that was used to conclude that glass was a liquid has been shown to be misinterpreted. Now it is considered to be an amorphous solid, just as BBoitano stated.

      Glenn Blaylock

      by Glenn Blaylock on January 11th, 2011

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