Have you ever thought about a candle when you put it in the freezer and flame the freezing candle? Sounds fun. It’s a super cool project you can do at home and a fun way to discover how candles work with your kids or family when the festival seasons come.
Here is a practical guide for freezing candles. Let’s look at what happens to flames when frozen and how freezing candles work to the theory. Read the content and follow each step with us.
Contents
What you need to do this experiment: Materials
Surprisingly you need a small list of items to try out this. Here are the items you’ll need to start the experiment shall we? Below is a simple and short list of items for a home science experiment. So let’s dig in.
- Candle
- A freezer
- A container
- Pure Water
Experiment Procedure
- First, you can fill the water container. The container must be large enough to hold your selected candle.
- Now place the candle inside the container and make sure it is fully soaked in the liquid.
- It’s time to put the jar in the freezer for at least a day before continuing the test. This step will give enough time for the candle to cool down.
- After 24 hours, check your container with a candle. When the candles get to the desired level of its texture, take the container out of the freezer and let it cool down at room temperature.
- When you see your candle is frozen, take it out of the water and allow them to dry completely.
- Now, you can light the candles and then see what happens.
Theory Behind freezing candles
If you place a candle in the freezer, you’ll be amazed to see how the wax inside becomes inflexible and frozen! But the candle’s flame remains soft and bendy! When the candle is warmed, the candle wax will melt and turn back into a liquid while the handle remains solid.
The candle wax freezes at a lower temperature than the normal water around it. That means the wax will freeze before the water freezes when these two in together in one container. That is because different chemicals in the wax have different melting points, which are average, lower than water. On the other hand, the flame stick is made out of cloth or another similar material that won’t freeze in a typical home fridge.
Things You Learn From Freezing Candles
Not only is it fun to try to freeze candles, but it can also teach you a lot about science. You can learn a few things from this experiment:
- Chemical Composition of Materials
Each act in the environment and humans has chemical and physical interactions. Burning, freezing, thawing, and even melting candles and wax shows you all the scientific interactions between chemical compositions. Then you can realize wax and water’s different freezing and melting points and the same environmental energy. That gives the different melting rates and causes the effect of freezing candles.
- How Temperature Affects Materials
You can understand how heat and temperatures affect wax, fabric, and water. Throughout this freezing process, you will see wax solidification at low temperatures. But it changed back to liquid when we thawed it after 24 hours. So simply, this process demonstrates how temperature changes can affect the physical properties of materials.
- The Importance of Wick Materials
Why the candle needs this wicking material, and what qualities should it have? Here is the fact that all wick material support to remain the candle so soft and flexible. This is a sick example to understand that combining two components changes their unique properties.
End Note:
As the step guide explains, the freezing candle is a fun activity and a helpful trick you can apply to your functional candles. Most importantly, you can try this at home safely with zero harm. After that, you may show this scientific technique to your family, friends, or children and explain it in the most scientific way possible so that they can try it out.
So why don’t you try this cool scientific experiment today itself? You might discover something new!
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