Can a Boat Float In Supercritical Fluid? (Stabilized Version)

I posted this video on my main channel but the shaking was distracting. So I motion stabilized the shaking of the chamber in this version. See the original here: • Can a Boat Float In Su...
In this video I turn CO2 into a supercritical fluid with a boat floating on it to see what happens when the fluid passes its critical point!

[@Neumaticgrunt]

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get to actually see this, you read about it but have to imagine what it looks like. This was very incredible to watch, made my day.

[@dangerous8333]

Your wildest dreams, huh? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@3RR0RNULL]

@@dangerous8333Yeah, those are some pretty lame wildest dreams, especially when there are tons of videos of it on KZbin.

[@reportedstolen3603]

This would be really cool if you recreated it with colored dye in the fluid. Would look really interesting as the phases change!

[@paradiselost9946]

what type of dye do you recommend? hmmm... bromine? fluorine? not many coloured gases...

[@charlievane]

caffeine, maybe

[@elduderino1329]

​@@charlievane I really hope you meant coffee.

[@n5sdm]

I wonder if it would fall out of "solution" or it it would stay in the "less dense solution/high density gas" that fills the tank.

[@charlievane]

@@elduderino1329 nope, I meant the pure caffeine molecule - coffee is a mixture of impurities.

[@lukefuller284]

Leaving a comment to increase engagement because I fully support the double-dipping of this video

[@-_Nuke_-]

me too!

[@Etx-z9]

"Are you liquid or are you gas?" "Yes" - Supercritical Fluid

[@pixelatedluisyt]

"I choose.. or" "I'm feeling all of the above today"

[@MapleDrookie]

“Guess”

[@nomadUCL]

One should never be super critical about such things 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@puellanivis]

There should be a density of boat that is less dense than the super-critical phase, yet more dense than the gas phase. This boat should still float on the liquid, but when it turns super-critical, it would float on the whole super-critical fluid, rather than just the liquid alone.

[@Sameer_S_Kulkarni]

That range is between 400 g·¹ to 800 gl·¹

[@LaserFur]

The problem is finding a material that would have that low of density at that pressure. even the Styrofoam lost some of it's buoyancy due to being crushed. and Silicone arogel would fill up with liquid Co2 since that is how it's made. maybe coating the arogel would work, but it's going to shrink some.

[@ModelLights]

@@LaserFur 'but it's going to shrink some.' Yep, something that would float on the combined phase and move up was the first thought. But most anything should crush or saturate, and then sink instead. But forget a solid object, find a different density liquid or gas that would have the correct properties. Should be able to find something that would work, and be a blob between them and then move up when it goes supercritical.

[@akulkis]

​@@Sameer_S_Kulkarni No, it would be less than 400 g/l

[@Sameer_S_Kulkarni]

@@akulkis Yes, it would be less than 400 g/l

[@jakespencer6781]

This is very watchable now 🙏 I didn't realize how eyestrainy it was until i saw this version

[@vincenttrigg4521]

Yeah, even with small motions of the eye staying focused on the "boat", the eye still has the motions to do

[@alihms]

I do not understand why there was a need to shake the whole apparatus in the first place. If everything else stood still, the minute changes in the meniscus will automatically draw our eyes towards it. This is better versus shaking it where everything is in motion and we can't even focus on the important thing (ie the meniscus).

[@ArchangelExile]

​Exactly. The shaking was annoying af.

[@oriongurtner7293]

Pretty sure if I’m on a lake that suddenly went super critical that I’d already be dead from the conditions that brought about a super critical lake That’s definitely a “You died” type experience right there

[@blueslime5855]

Congrats, you understood the joke

[@ATOM-vv3xu]

This video is so incredibly much better. Uploading it again was a great idea

[@steveshopworxmachine5716]

I know it's because of the camera's resolution but I could see the line quite clearly where as you couldn't and your shanking it continuously actually made the transition less amazing for the viewer in my opinion. I know why you were shaking it but I would love to see this again but left completely still. The high resolution video makes it much easier to see on screen than you could in person it seems.

[@SissypheanCatboy]

Its not about wow factor, its about a proper scientific demonstration.

[@thunderheadcinema6743]

​@@SissypheanCatboy shaking it doesn't contribute anything to the science

[@alakani]

Very polite, I was about to just scream ffs quit shaking it :p

[@clairecelestin8437]

Thank you for the stabilized version. This is much more comfortable to watch.

[@MrMalu01]

what if you add dye to the liquid? what will it look like because now everything is transparent.

[@vincenttrigg4521]

Most dyes that we use are used in water or alcohol so making those supercritical are a lot harder to achieve. I'm personally unsure how the pigments would react on their own. Maybe they would stain the vessel due to the pressures implemented.

[@Back_To_Pray]

Thanks for showing how matter behaves under extreme conditions😊

[@conor7154]

You should definitely reshoot it without the shaking and with some of the suggestions about dye coloring and background patterns and stuff

[@MawDaws]

i like your funny words, magic man.

[@Bnslamb]

This reminds me about Applied Science and his video from 12 years ago --> A close look at supercritical carbon dioxide CO2.

[@AndreyMikhaylovlolmaus]

The squished half-sphere of styrofoam totally looks like a brain! 😍

[@scpvrr]

I learn something new every time I watch. I love your experimentation approach and your presentation style.

[@CASP_ian]

I wanted to see this happening for a long long time. Thank you sir. This is what I like about this channel !!

[@chamber1]

I have been watching you since I was a kid. Keep up the good work. Love! ❤

[@dubemdebrie1460]

One of your many good ones. Thank you 🌀

[@akulkis]

I will definitely remember this for the next time Lake Superior goes supercritical.

[@MrScottev]

Why are you shaking it so much?

[@chasewilltin8567]

It annoys me as well

[@SoulDelSol]

To show miniscus

[@AndreyMikhaylovlolmaus]

It is absolutely amazing to see the "boat" slowly sinking, indicating that the liquid becomes LESS DENSE, which is something a normal liquid absolutely cannot do, which in turn indicates that the liquid is no longer normal. It's supercritical - a gas-like liquid, or a liquid-like gas. It's an effing fourth state of matter aggregate! I say plasma is demoted to the fifth place.

[@Zytron]

The motion stabilization makes a surprisingly large difference, thanks!

[@MustafaKalafat]

That is the most amazing video I watched. Thanks for the efforts making and sharing it.

[@Ch1pp007]

Glad you posted this version

[@someone120e]

you learn something new everyday

[@ggsay1687]

Great experiment, never thought that it could be done in that way.

[@alllove1754]

Thank you for finding a question and answer to something I may have never has the imagination to ask and try to answer

[@BadgerFiresFoam]

this is super awesome to see and deserves more views so im leaving a comment to help with engagement

[@Drachenfang]

A nice alternate view. Thank you for showing the motion stabilized version

[@alexandreperron6106]

Thank you for this. I needed to see this.

[@elduderino1329]

What an awesome experiment. I love your creativity. BTW everything went exactly as I expected.

[@alannull3497]

Much better than the shaky version. Thank you :-)

[@Whom1337]

loving the new look

[@kai_probably]

Stabilized Version - continues shaking it

[@zacharhia]

I used to be subscribed to you and somehow now I'm not. Resubbed. Glad i found you AGAIN!! Absolutely love your content.

[@ArchangelExile]

Now, imagine this with the gasses in the atmospheres of the gas giants such as Jupiter.

[@andrewohoro]

The shaking of the container, especially without an explanation for why you were shaking it, was infuriating. Just let it be so we can see what's happening.

[@Paradoxical124]

I’m assuming it was to display the meniscus

[@1Rab]

He said he shaked it to spot any differences in the refraction

[@yiftachgross5878]

Disagree

[@professionalineverything]

Mate, I thought it would explode if he keeps shaking it.

[@Cypher7765]

I just wanted to watch the CO2 disappear. I don’t get why it needed to be simulated under earthquake conditions 😂

[@MarkHill45]

Cool experiment

[@BIG-DIPPER-56]

Man - EXCELLENT, BRILLIANT -- THANKS!

[@marietrans8950]

I think you should have done this with something that uses displacement to float instead of Styrofoam which is just buoyant, because that's how an actual boat works

[@godslayer9000]

Everything that floats is using what you're calling displacement. Styrofoam is mostly air, which is why it's good at floating no matter what kind of shape you make out of it. Boats are like if you took a huge block of styrofoam but all the foam was compressed into a "boat shape" and all the microscopic air pockets were consolidated to be the place where you'd sit in a boat. Styrofoam was arguably the better choice here as action lab could shake it as much he wanted and not risk tipping the "boat" over, ruining the experiment. I imagine normal boat would've behaved exactly the same as the styrofoam piece except maybe up until the supercritical fluid was cooled back down to a normal fluid, as it could have filled the boat with a lot of liquid and sunk it.

[@julianpiper240]

What a beautiful sight

[@mickymoist]

Thank you for this... I was going crazy

[@yudodis]

Vodka and Scotch are MY supercritical fluids 🫡

[@NuisanceMan]

Poor little foam. It suffered so much for you.

[@AeroGraphica]

Mesmerizing !

[@parad0x765]

Looks like a big tardigrade dk why 😭

[@siddhartharasaily517]

Cool experiment 😊 kudos

[@darylefleming1191]

I learned about supercritical fluids in Walt Brown's book "In The Beginning". Strange things happens in a supercritical state.

[@aididdat1749]

Where can I find such a pressure vessel?

[@rohilkhan2015]

Can anyone give me the link to buy this vessel, it would be very helpful

[@chalky_white]

Action Lab is the hero we never knew we needed 👌🏼

[@muneeb-khan]

Weird short, cool video

[@noldor3442]

this is due to the fact that at a critical point, the two phases become interchangeable/the same - this means they have the same density. as the density of vapour increases, the density of liquid decreases during the heating until they are equal = that is the critical point. that's why, if you had true and perfect supercriticality, styrofoam could either only float up/fall down, nothing in between. in this case, the supercritical fluid had density lower than styrofoam, so it sank.

[@wacpj1929]

I went fishing and knew to leave when water went supercritical thx for save my life 👍

[@syx3s]

super-fluids are amazing.

[@user-te8io5vi6q]

Is Jupiter a super critical atmosphere? I heard somewhere if we were to have a suit that could keep us safe and we drop into jupiter we would be in a state thats not quite liquid but not quite gas.

[@helipilotuh1]

I want to build one of these just to have a mini rain shower on my desk. Wonder if you built a tall enough one if you could make mini snow.

[@mitchconner403]

8:43 So if the average density of the supercritical mixture is greater than the average density of the boat then would it float to the top? Hypothetically if you used a different substance that was less dense than styrofoam, and it is less dense to the average, supercritical density

[@nicksnelson1231]

Made me remember why i love science

[@Taima]

It seems a bit clingy to the sides when you picked it up and moved it around. Is that because of styrofoam and metal contact, or maybe more what I was thinking was having to do with slight pockets of the least supercritical bits of fluid which the “boat” would want to hang onto?

[@smaragtbooster]

Thats much better :D I mean I saw the first video to the end, so it's not necessary for me to look it again. xD But I let a like and a comment here ^^

[@reneceulemans]

The styrofoam crushes because of increased pressure. That seems to me another factor; it’s specific gravity rises so it sinks a bit even in the liquid CO2.

[@maker0824]

Even with it stabilised the constant shaking annoyed the heck out of me.

[@Soguwe]

I wonder if that happens sometimes in ice giants. Do they have enough gravitational pull to create these pressures? Would certainly be a cool premise for a sci-fi story. Trying to rescue yourself while the liquid your ship floats on just disappears.

[@Badgerheist]

Fun to think about deep sea geothermal vents and whether or not the seawater around them is supercritical.

[@harmon802]

Amazing

[@madrigalmejia]

What about the air inside the styrofoam compressing under the pressure, not being buoyant anymore? I'm confused...

[@avazgaziz]

impressive!

[@AlienXtream1]

that is MUCH better. lesson learned for future videos. avoid rapid/large movements with macro shots XD

[@dubemdebrie1460]

What would happen to the density if you had filled the chamber with liquid to 95% full and then heated it to supercritical? Would the boat float? What would the pressure be?

[@TiagoTiagoT]

Could you do this again but with some fine neutrally-buoyant glitter sprinkled in there to help visualize the flow of material? Or would that risk damaging the chamber too much?

[@aashutoshchauhan1208]

Can you do it with more dry ice and less air above it, I think boat might float in this case

[@patty1991]

Nice Lightner

[@hysteria3503]

What Would Happen If You Release The Pressure When Its Super Critical?

[@GAND-OZZ]

It’s actually so weird how the liquid takes up the entire chamber. It makes me wonder why this happens, or if it’s possible to have the liquid not fill up the entire chamber by having a larger chamber and a smaller amount of water. Would you be able to see it then?

[@billschwandt1]

Ya know how a feather and a rock fall at the same rate in a vacuum? Would the same thing happen in this environment?

[@lukaspc2892]

So is it just that we cannot see the line anymore or is it the liquid and gas becoming one because of the high pressure?

[@TheMilkman710]

😂 I can't believe you did this!

[@Gamesmarts194]

Have to wonder if there’s any way to see what supercritical fluid feels like (Obviously not with your bare hands, but with like a stirring bar/stick of some sort, though this is assuming THAT is even possible)

[@c.jishnu378]

Are you a liquid because you were a solid that gained latent heat or are you a liquid because you were a gas that cooled? Nah, i am Supercritical.

[@OtamaLuke]

That thing floating in the beginning looks like the air bison Appa from Avatar 😂

[@MG_1502]

Whats the difference btwn the original video and the STABILIZED version.

[@Relkond]

Styrofoam is porous - and surface tension will help to keep it from soaking up liquid CO2. Try this again with a solid plastic cube to eliminate porosity questions (one with density near that of sea-water should yield similar results)

[@Josh_K01]

It’s a whole lot easier to see when you are NOT shaking it.

[@qazmatron]

I think the boat sank before the liquid-gas boundary disappeared. A less-dense boat might float longer before sinking. As heat is added, the liquid and gas warm up. The liquid density probably decreases as it warms (even though the gas pressure increases). Styrofoam is the wrong material for a "boat" that is subjected to 1000psi. Increasing pressure crushes the styrofoam because the gas inside its bubbles is compressible. A styrofoam boat is partially a barometer. You want uncrushable *syntactic foam* , which is made of cement and hollow spheres of glass or ceramic.

[@blackbear92201]

Awesome :D

[@frogz]

omg you uploaded a non short to your shorts channel, now you will have to rename it to Action lab: action-ier

[@frogz]

also, you probably diffused the air out of the styrofoam and it is full of co2 at that point, i suspect it would do the same thing if you put it in water with high pressure for a while until all of the air contained was crushed, if you were to fully diffuse co2 into the styrofoam by soaking it beforehand for a while at higher pressure you might be able to keep the pressure in the "boat" higher than the surrounding supercritical fluid...but... that is just a guess and i am basing it on my own knowledge and no actual research

[@user-xj8wy4uu1q]

Either float to top or sink depending on boat density

[@yiftachgross5878]

You are great

[@keithjurena9319]

Polystyrene is foamed by use of water vapor flash evaporated. Which means carbon dioxide vapor can enter which is probably why it won't float as well.

[@lembaswafer7425]

For everyone watching, please don’t pick up dry ice with your bare hands.

[@hinge8626]

Still a bit shaky but it’s definitely better

[@ichbrauchmehrkaffee5785]

As cool as this video is, the squeaky table drives me insane

[@BruceLeeAlwaysWins]

Started off pretty cool until things got heated.. Still, it's a solid demo overall. Or was it liquid? Gas? Congrats on inventing the world's first supercritical Sterling engine. Hope to see this carbon capture wonder engine in the next clip. Keep it up!

[@Myndness]

Wouldve liked you not shaking the darn thing the whole time, still... interesting interaction.

[@blue7724]

I know how that piece of styrofoam feels

[@Yezpahr]

The "boat" looks too much like a brain.

[@billynomates920]

still shaking it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!