Month: January 1997

How does reverse osmosis work? – MC

Normal osmosis in water is a process in which pure water flows through a semi-permeable membrane to dilute a concentrated solution on the other side. It is driven by statistics—it’s much more likely for a water molecule on the fresh water side to pass through the membrane than it is for a water molecule on the concentrated solution side to pass through the membrane. There are simply more water molecules trying to cross the membrane from the fresh water side! In fact, water molecules will continue to flow from the fresh water side to the concentrated solution side until the solution has been highly diluted or an accumulation of pressure on the solution side slows the passage of water and brings it to a halt.

Reverse osmosis occurs when the pressure on the solution side is raised so high that the movement of water reverses directions. If you squeeze the concentrated solution hard enough, you can drive additional water molecules from that solution through the semi-permeable membrane and into the fresh water on the other side. The raised pressure on the solution changes the statistics, making it more likely for water molecules to go from the solution side to the fresh water side. This technique is used to purify water in homes and to desalinate water in desert countries.

How do stalactites and stalagmites form in caves? — GS, Conroe, TX

They form when various minerals come out of solution in water and crystallize on the surfaces of a cave. To understand how this process occurs, we must look at the interface between the water and the cave surface. Whenever water is in contact with a mineral surface, there is a chance that an atom of the surface will suddenly leave the surface and dissolve in the water. If there are atoms already dissolved in the water, there is also a chance that one of them will suddenly come out of solution in the water and attach to the surface. Atoms leave and return to cave surfaces all the time as water drips from the ceiling of a cave to its floor.

What is important for the growth of stalactites and stalagmites is that more atoms stick to the cave surfaces than leave those surfaces. That is exactly what happens and it does so because the water has already picked up more than enough dissolved atoms before it reaches the stalactite. Either because of temperature changes or because of evaporation, the water that runs across the cave roof and down the sides of a stalactite deposits more atoms on the stalactite’s surface than it removes. The same goes for the stalagmite after the water drips down to the cave floor. As the atoms build up on the cave surfaces, the stalactites grow down and the stalagmites grow up.

At times a very thin invisible layer of ice forms on road surfaces. The road surface appears dry and does not have the telltale reflections of ice. Many people refer to this as “black ice.” How is this ice formed? What are the crystal properties that make it invisible? – BK

Black ice is a layer of ice that is almost free of internal defects or air bubbles and that does not have a smooth surface. The absence of internal defects or air bubbles is what makes it transparent rather than white. Snow and crushed ice appear white because they contain countless tiny surfaces. Whenever light changes speed, as it does in going from ice to air or air to ice, some of that light reflects. Since snow and crushed ice contain many ice/air interfaces, they reflect light extensively and appear white. In contrast, black ice contains no internal ice/air interfaces and doesn’t reflect any light from inside. Any light that makes it into the black ice goes all the way to the roadway. If the roadway reflects any of this light, it again passes unscathed through the black ice. The only evidence that the black ice exists at all comes from its surface, but here again the ice offers little that you can see. Since true black ice is microscopically rough, the small amount of light that reflects as it enters the ice from the air is reflected randomly in all directions. So little of that reflected light travels in any one direction that you can barely see it at all. Overall, black ice reflects so little light that you see only the roadway itself. While I am not sure, I think that it forms when moisture in the air condenses to dew on the roadway and then freezes into ice. Whatever process forms it must leave it almost without holes and therefore invisible.