Mpemba effect and phase transitions in the adiabatic cooling of water
  before freezing
Mpemba effect and phase transitions in the adiabatic cooling of water before freezing
S. Esposito∗, R. De Risi, and L. Somma
Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università di Napoli “Federico II” and
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli
Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, Via Cinthia, I-80126 Napoli, Italy
An accurate experimental investigation on the Mpemba effect (that is, the freezing of initially
hot water before cold one) is carried out, showing that in the adiabatic cooling of water a relevant
role is played by supercooling as well as by phase transitions taking place at 6 ± 1oC, 3.5 ± 0.5oC
and 1.3 ± 0.6oC, respectively. The last transition, occurring with a non negligible probability of
0.21, has not been detected earlier. Supported by the experimental results achieved, a thorough
theoretical analysis of supercooling and such phase transitions, which are interpreted in terms of
different ordering of clusters of molecules in water, is given.
A well-known phenomenon such as that of the freezing of
water has attracted much interest in recent times due to
some counter-intuitive experimental results [1] and the
apparent lacking of a generally accepted physical inter-
pretation of them [2], [4], [3], [5]. These results consist
in the fact that, many times, initially hot water freezes
more quickly than initially cold one, a phenomenon which
is now referred to as the Mpemba effect (for a short his-
torical and scientific survey see the references in [3]). The
observations sound counter-intuitive when adopting the
naive, simple view according to which initially hot water
has first to cool down to the temperature of the initially
cold one, and then closely follow the cooling curve of
the last one. The effect takes place even for not pure
water, with solutions or different liquids (the original
Mpemba observation occurred when he tried to make an
ice cream).
Several possible physical phenomena, aimed to explain
such observations, have been proposed in the literature,
mainly pointing out that some change in water should
occur when heated [2] [5].
However, such explanations cannot be applied if some
precautions are taken during the experiments (whilst the
Mpemba effect has been observed even in these cases)
and, in any case, calculations do not seem to support
quantitatively the appearance of the effect (see references
in [3]).
Some novel light has been introduced in the discussion,
in our opinion, in Ref. [3], where the Mpemba effect
has been related to the occurrence of supercooling both
in preheated and in non-preheated water. Initially hot
water seems to supercool to a higher local temperature
than cold water, thus spontaneously freezing earlier. As
a consequence, such a scenario, apparently supported by
experimental investigations, points toward a statistical
explanation of the effect, neither the time elapsed nor
the effective freezing temperature being predictable.
Here, we prefer to face the problem by starting from
∗Corresponding author, Salvatore.Esposito@na.infn.it
what is known about the freezing process, rather than
the cooling one.
In general it is known that, for given values of the ther-
modynamic quantities (for example the volume and the
energy), a physical system may exist in a state in which
it is not homogeneous, but it breaks into two or more
homogeneous parts in mutual equilibrium between them.
This happens when stability conditions are not fulfilled,
so that a phase transition occurs; it is, for example, just
the case of water that, at the pressure p of 1 atm and at
temperature T of 0oC, becomes unstable.
When liquid water is cooled, the average velocities of
its molecules decreases but, even if the temperature goes
down to 0oC (the fixed temperature where liquid and
solid phases coexist) or lower, this is not a sufficient con-
dition for freezing to start. In fact, in order that ice
begins to form, first of all some molecules of the liquid
water should arrange in a well-defined order to form a
minimum crystal and this, in the liquid state, may hap-
pen only randomly. Second, such starting nucleus has
to attract further molecules in the characteristic loca-
tions of the crystalline structure of ice, by means of the
interaction forces of the nucleus with the non-ordered
molecules in the liquid. Nucleation and crystal growth
processes are both favored at temperatures lower than
0oC, so that supercooling of liquid water is generally re-
quired before its effective freezing. In fact, in pure water,
only molecules in the liquid with statistically lower veloci-
ties can arrange the initial nucleus and, furthermore, only
slow moving molecules are able to join that cluster and
put their kinetic energies into potential energy of bond
formation. When ice begins to form, these molecules are
removed from those attaining to the given Maxwell dis-
tribution for the liquid water, so that the average speed
becomes larger, and the temperature of the system rises
to 0oC (obviously, the temperature is set at the value
where the continuing exchange of molecules is equal in
terms of those joining and those leaving the formed crys-
tal surface).
Thus supercooling is, de facto, a key ingredient in the
freezing process, although supercooled water exists in a
state of precarious equilibrium (water is in a metastable
http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1381v1
state). Minor perturbations such as impurities or other
can trigger the sudden appearance of the stable crys-
talline phase for the whole liquid mass, again with the
release of the entire crystallization heat (melting heat)
which increases the temperature of the freezing liquid to
the normal 0oC one.
In general, when a system is in a metastable state,
sooner or later it will pass to another stable state. In
water, density and entropy fluctuations favor the forma-
tion of crystallization nuclei but, if the liquid constitutes
a stable state, such nuclei are always unstable and will
disappear with time being. However, since the fluctua-
tions become more pronounced the lower the tempera-
ture, if water is supercooled, for sufficiently large nuclei
they will result to be stable and grew with time, becom-
ing freezing centers. The starting of the phase transition
is thus determined by the probability of appearance of
those nuclei, and the reported Mpemba effect could be
simply a manifestation of this process.
We have calculated just this probability P as function
of the absolute temperature T of the metastable phase
(the one at which the nucleus is in equilibrium with the
liquid), obtaining the following result [11]:
(T − T∗)2
. (1)
Here T∗ is the equilibrium temperature of the liquid-solid
phase, α is a dimensionless normalization factor and β is
a constant whose expression is given by
16πτ3v2
3Q2kT∗
, (2)
where τ is the surface tension, v the molecular volume
of the crystallization nucleus, Q the molecular heat of
the transition from the metastable phase to the nucleus
phase, and k is the Boltzmann constant. Just to give
an idea of the macroscopic value of the constant β, let
us note that τ3v2 = W 3
is the cube of the work done
by the surface forces, and by assuming that Q ∼ kT∗ we
may write:
Wsurf
, (3)
that is the constant β is ruled by the ratio Wsurf/Q.
The probability P has a minimum at the liquid-solid
equilibrium temperature T∗ and increases for decreasing
temperature, as expected. From the formulae above it
is clear that the probability for nucleation, and thus the
onset of the freezing process as well, is enhanced if the
work done by the surface forces (or the surface tension
itself) is lowered in some way. In normal daily conditions
when a commercial refrigerator is employed, this is eas-
ily induced in two simple ways: either by the presence
of impurities, when solutions (such as an ice cream so-
lution, as in the Mpemba case) are used as the freezing
V= 20 cm3 V= 50 cm3 V= 65 cm3 V= 80 cm3
PSC 1 0.28 0 0.46
Tc = −8
oC Tc = −14
oC Tc = −22
oC Tc = −26
PSC 0.75 0.50 0 0.11
TABLE I: Probabilities for the occurrence of supercooling for
different volumes V of the sample and different temperatures
of the cryostat Tc.
liquid instead of pure water, or by fluctuations of the ex-
ternal pressure or temperature, caused in the commercial
refrigerator itself. This explains why no appreciable su-
percooling is observed in normal situations. Obviously,
the most direct way to induce freezing in supercooled
water is to introduce an external body in it, in order to
directly lower the surface tension.
We have thus performed an accurate experimental in-
vestigation, accounting for a total of about one hundred
runs, aimed to clarify the phenomenology of the Mpemba
effect and its interpretation. In the first part of our ex-
periments we have tested all the above qualitative pre-
dictions about supercooling, by studying the cooling and
freezing of tens of cm3 of normal water in a commer-
cial refrigerator, in daily operation conditions. The key
point, in fact, is not to obtain the most favorable physical
conditions, employing sophisticated setups, but rather
to reproduce the Mpemba conditions, that is adiabatic
cooling (with commercial refrigerators) of not extremely
small quantities of water. We have used an Onofri re-
frigerator for the cooling of double distilled water and a
NiCr-Ni thermocouple as a temperature sensor (Leybold
666193), interfaced with a Cassy Lab software for data
acquisition.
For fixed temperatures of the cryostat we have indeed
observed supercooling in our samples, with the freezing
occurring just along the lines predicted above. In par-
ticular, during the supercooling phase we have induced
a number of small perturbations in our samples, namely,
variations of external pressure or temperature, mechan-
ical perturbations or introduction of an external macro-
scopic body (a glass thermometer held at the same tem-
perature of the sample). In all these cases we have regis-
tered the sudden interruption of the supercooling phase
and a practically instantaneous increase of the temper-
ature to the value of 0oC, denoting the starting of the
freezing process. Conversely, if no perturbation is in-
duced (or takes places) the water reached an equilibrium
with the cryostat at temperatures up to about −30oC
(lasting also for several thousands of seconds).
We have then verified that when the freezing process
started from the supercooling phase, the Mpemba effect
took place with a probability in agreement with that re-
ported in Ref. [3].
In about half (with a total probability of 0.47) of the
runs performed we have detected a supercooling phase.
FIG. 1: Left: Cooling curves for V = 20 cm3 and Tc = −8
Right: The fitted time duration of the phase transition at
3.5oC as function of the volume V of the samples, for different
temperatures Tc of the cryostat.
In Table I we report the observed probability PSC for
the occurrence of supercooling for different volumes V of
the water sample and for different temperatures Tc of the
cryostat. We find the data to be fitted by a straight line,
denoting (in the range considered) a linear decreasing
of PSC for decreasing temperatures of the cryostat and
for increasing volumes of the samples, this probability
reaching the maximum PSC = 1 for Tc = 0
oC (and V =
An interesting feature of what we have observed is the
sensible appearance of iced water in our samples. In fact,
when supercooling did not occur, the ice started to form
around the walls of the beaker, while the inner parts were
still in a liquid form, as usually expected. Instead the im-
mediate freezing of supercooled water involved the whole
sample, this showing a very peculiar symmetric form.
We have used cylindrical beakers with the temperature
sensor in their periphery, near the walls; the observed
structure was a pure radial (planar) one, with no liquid
water and radial filaments of ice from the center of the
beakers to the walls (in one case we have been also able
to take a low resolution picture of this, before its destruc-
tion outside the refrigerator).
However, although supercooling plays a relevant role in
the manifestation of the Mpemba effect, the things are
made more complicated by the occurrence of other statis-
tical effects before the temperature of the water reaches
the value of 0oC. This comes out when an accurate mea-
surement of the cooling curves is performed (some exam-
ples of what we have obtained during the second part of
our experiments are reported in Fig. 1).
According to a simple naive model, the heat exchange
from the water sample (at initial temperature T0) to the
cryostat (at fixed temperature Tc) is described by the
equation
C dT = δ (Tc − T0) dt, (4)
where C and δ are the thermal capacity and the heat
conductivity of the water, respectively. Thus by solving
the differential equation in (4), the following expression
Tc = −8± 2
V= 20 cm3 V= 50 cm3 V= 65 cm3 V= 80 cm3
∆t1 (s) 7± 1
∆t2 (s) 11± 6 220± 100 500± 170 630 ± 160
∆t3 (s) 12± 6 70± 30
Tc = −14± 2
V= 20 cm3 V= 50 cm3 V= 65 cm3 V= 80 cm3
∆t1 (s) 37± 1
∆t2 (s) 8± 3 130 ± 80 480± 160 500± 60
∆t3 (s) 7± 4
Tc = −22± 1
V= 20 cm3 V= 50 cm3 V= 65 cm3 V= 80 cm3
∆t1 (s) 63 ± 1 7± 1
∆t2 (s) 170± 100 130± 70
∆t3 (s)
Tc = −26± 1
V= 20 cm3 V= 50 cm3 V= 65 cm3 V= 80 cm3
∆t1 (s) 3.5± 0.7
∆t2 (s) 3± 1 320 ± 70 210 ± 170
∆t3 (s) 200 ± 70 1± 1
TABLE II: Time duration of the phase transitions at 6oC
(∆t1), 3.5
oC (∆t2) and 1.3
oC (∆t3) for different volumes V
of the sample and different temperatures of the cryostat Tc.
for the temperature as function of time t is obtained:
T = Tc − (Tc − T0) e
−t/τ , (5)
where τ = C/δ is a time constant measuring the cool-
ing rate of the sample. However, although the overall
dependence of T on time is that expressed by Eq. (5),
our experimental data clearly reveal the presence of three
transition points before freezing (or supercooling), where
τ changes its value. This transitions occur at tempera-
tures T1 = 6±1
oC, T2 = 3.5±0.5
oC and T3 = 1.3±0.6
with a probability of P1 = 0.11, P2 = 0.84 and P3 = 0.21,
respectively. The time duration ∆t of each phase tran-
sition, during which the temperature keeps practically
constant [12], depends on the volume of the sample and
on the temperature of the cryostat. The data we have
collected are summarized in Table II. For the phase
transition at T2 these data show a linear increase of
∆t2 with Tc and a quadratic one with V ; in Fig. 1 we
give the fitting curves corresponding to best fit function
∆t2 = (a+bTc)V
2. Instead, for the other two phase tran-
sitions no sufficient data are available in order to draw
any definite conclusion on the dependence on V and Tc,
though ∆t1 and ∆t3 appear to be shorter than ∆t2.
The occurrence of these phase transitions is likely re-
lated to the formation of more or less ordered structures
in water, resulting from the competition between long-
range density ordering and local bond ordering maxi-
mizing the number of local bonds [8]. The anomalous
density maximum at about 4oC (which we observe here
at T2 = 3.5 ± 0.5
oC) is, for example, explained just in
Tc = −8
oC Tc = −14
oC Tc = −22
oC Tc = −26
τ1 (s) 600± 110 680± 100 1000 ± 110 950 ± 190
τ2 (s) 1080 ± 260 1060 ± 170 530± 90 570± 3
τ3 (s) 1590 ± 930 1520 ± 730 270± 50 220 ± 80
τ4 (s) 620± 480 500± 180 150± 30 640 ± 490
TABLE III: Time constants τ1 (T < T1), τ2 (T1 < T < T2),
τ3 (T2 < T < T3), τ4 (T > T3) of the cooling curves before
and after the three phase transitions detected, for different
temperatures of the cryostat Tc.
term of this: as water is cooled, the local specific volume
increases due to the progressive increase in tetrahedral
order, so that the entropy, that always decreases upon
cooling, at 4oC becomes anticorrelated with the volume,
resulting in an inversion (from positive to negative) of
the thermal expansion coefficient and a corresponding
density maximum [9]. Similar explanations in terms of
different ordering could apply also to the other two tran-
sitions we have observed, but an exhaustive discussion
of them, which would require more experimental data,
is beyond the scope of this Letter. We only note that,
while the first transition at T1 = 6 ± 1
oC seems related
to the effect observed in Ref. [10] at 8oC, to the best of
our knowledge no other author has reported the one at
T3 = 1.3 ± 0.6
oC (which, as mentioned, occurs with an
appreciable probability of 0.21).
The observed mean values of the four time constants
of the cooling curves, before and after the three phase
transitions, are reported in Table III for different val-
ues of Tc. All the time constants are approximately in-
dependent on the volume V, in disagreement with the
naive model discussed above which predicts an increase
of τ with the thermal capacity. Instead they depend lin-
early on Tc, showing a negative slope for τ1 and positive
ones for τ2, τ3, τ4 and a finite value for Tc = 0
oC. Note
that (in the naive model) the ratios of the different time
constants, at fixed volumes, give the (inverse) ratios of
the heat conductivities in the different ordered phases
(all these ratios decrease with the cryostat temperature),
which are directly related to microscopic quantities like
the size and average velocity of the ordered clusters of
molecules in water.
Coming back to the Mpemba effect, it is easy to see
that Eq. (5) predicts that, for constant τ , initially hot
water reaches the freezing point later than initially cold
water. However, from what just discussed, in general this
could be no longer true if the time constant changes its
value during the cooling process (the slope of the cooling
curves changes), or phase transitions before freezing oc-
cur (with time durations sufficiently long/short). In ad-
dition to these effects, the reaching of the freezing point
does not automatically guarantees the effective starting
of the freezing process, since relevant supercooling may
take place, thus statistically causing the freezing of ini-
tially hot water before cold one.
From the data we have collected we have verified that,
for given V and Tc, in many cases no inversion between
the cooling curves happens before the freezing point, ir-
respective of the change in the value of τ or the time
duration of the phase transitions. Nevertheless we have
as well realized that this is mainly due to the not very
large difference between the initial temperatures of the
samples, and in few cases (among those studied by our-
selves) it cannot be applied, the largest effect causing the
inversion being the phase transition at T2.
In conclusion our experimental results, and their in-
terpretation reported here, clearly point out the statisti-
cal nature of the Mpemba effect (as already realized in
[3]), whose explanation is given in terms of transitions
between differently ordered phases in water and super-
cooling. The very detection of such phenomena seems
to require the cooling to be adiabatic (as fulfilled in our
experiment, as well as in those performed by other au-
thors [3]), since for non adiabatic processes (for example,
in fused salt) the coexistence of local solid nuclei in the
liquid phase has been observed [13].
An unexpected novel transition at T3 = 1.3 ± 0.6
has been as well detected with a non negligible proba-
bility, calling for further accurate investigation in order
to achieve a more complete understanding of the unique
properties of water.
Acknowledgements: Interesting discussions with G.
Salesi and M. Villa are kindly acknowledged.
[1] E.B. Mpemba, Cool. Phys. Educ. 4, 172 (1969).
[2] G.S. Kell, Am. J. Phys. 37, 564 (1969)
[3] D. Auerbach, Am. J. Phys. 63, 882 (1995).
[4] B. Wojciechowski, I. Owczarek and G. Bednarz, Crystatl.
Res. Tech. 23, 843 (1988).
[5] J.I. Katz, preprint arXiv:physics/0604224.
[6] See, for example, H.B. Callen, Thermodynamics (Wiley,
New York, 1960).
[7] L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, Statistical Physics (Perg-
amon, Oxford, 1980).
[8] H. Tanaka, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 5750 (1998).
[9] P.G. Debenedetti and H.E. Stanley, Physics Today, June
2003, 40.
[10] K. Kotera, T. Saito and T. Yamanaka, Phys. Lett. A
345, 184 (2005).
[11] We do not give the details of such calculations; the inter-
ested reader may follow those reported in section 162 of
Ref. [7] for a similar case.
[12] In some cases we have been able to observe also a van
der Waals-like profile of T (t) at the transition point
(metastable state), instead of only the mean constant
value of T .
[13] We are indebted with M. Villa for having pointed out
this to us.
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0604224
