When we look in nature, we see Lakes and rivers freeze from top to bottom, enabling fish to survive even after the surface of the body of water they live in has frozen over. And there the question comes- Why does ice float in water? Why does it not sink? Or even when we put ice cubes into our glass of water what makes them float instead of sinking to the bottom of glass?
This doesn’t just occur with small ice cubes only, giant icebergs also follow the same. Generally, when a liquid is cooled, more molecules are brought closer together and need to be accommodated in a smaller area.
“As water cools further and freezes into ice, it actually becomes less dense. Water is different because of hydrogen bonding.
This results in most solids having a greater density than liquids. But not so with ice. Water consists of positively-charged hydrogen atoms and negatively-charged oxygen atoms. When water cools, the hydrogen bonds adjust to hold the negatively-charged oxygen atoms apart, which prevents the ice from becoming any denser. So for water, the density actually decreases along with a decrease in temperature.
It causes ice to be less dense than water! This is why, Ice is different from other solids.
Have you wondered why a bottle filled with water cracks on freezing? Because, When water freezes, the ice formed expands and occupies more volume than the volume initially occupied by water. Hence, the same mass of water takes up more volume upon freezing and therefore has less density than water. This expansion causes the bottle of water to crack on freezing.
Pure water ice melts and transforms from a solid into a liquid (water) at temperatures above 32°F (0°C); 32°F (0°C) is the melting point.
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