Question about liquids freezing?

Question

Why is it that when you freeze water (ex. ice cubes) in the freezer, it's frozen solid, but if you try freezing soda, juice, or milk, it seems to be half frozen. It's like not fully frozen rock solid, but it appears as though only the water molecules inside the liquid is frozen solid.

Does this mean that only water can be fully "frozen"?

If there was a lake of frozen soda, juice, or milk, would you be able to ice-ski on it without it breaking?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The sugars and other ingredients lower the freezing point of the solution.  So either your freezer isn't cold enough to get down to the new freezing point, or you're anxious to get at that frozen fruit juice slurpee and haven't left it in the freezer long enough.

I recall a particular cold snap (sub-zero) when I was growing up.  My folks owned a motel and I had to clean up the drink machine after all of the bottled drinks were broken apart by the expanding Coke as it froze solid.  So yes, if its cold enough you will solid soft drink.

========== Follow up ==========

Freeze the water but not the other ingredients???  Back the boat up, Nellie.  All of the "ingredients" are dissolved in water to make a solution.  It's the solution that has a new freezing point.  There are not separate liquids that freeze at different temperatures.  Now, it is possible for some fo the dissolved solids to come out of solution as water freezes.  That is why when salt water (ocean water) freezes it is almost pure (salt free) ice.  The reason that ice floats is due to the difference in the density of ice compared to liquid water.  Ice is less dense.

Answer 2

Different freezing points of the ingredients.  If you put ice and soda in a clear glass and then let it warm up you will see that the water floats on top of the soda.  The components of soda seem to seperate pretty easily.  Freezing must do something similar.

As for things freezing solid, there is only one element that hasn't yet been frozen solid: helium.

Answer 3

All liquids have different freezing/boiling points.  Water for example freezes at 32F degrees.  The added ingredients in other liquids my cause it to need a lower freezing point.  Your freezer at home probably goes down to 10-20Fdegrees, so it will freeze water, but not the other liquids you mentioned.

Answer 4

just about anything can be fully frozen. it is a question of temperature.

water freezes at 0 deg C. juice, soda, etc are water with impurities. the impurities affect the freezing point/melting point, but they do not affect the temperature of your freezer. find a colder freezer, and you can freeze juice just as solid as you can freeze pure water.