I live in Florida but am taking a christmas trip to Idaho. Rather than trying to freeze soap bubbles in the zero degree Fahrenheits, I was thinking
to mix them with a safe soluble liquid that freezes at a higher temperature so the bubble freezes much faster.
Would glacial acetic acid thats 99% acetic acid speed up the freezing process? Or am I way off base?Texium - 1-11-2016 at 18:11
Maybe? I think it would depend on whether the bubbles will still form properly with the GAA added. Also, being as glacial acetic acid is very stinky
and corrosive, it would be safer and less smelly to use t-butanol instead, assuming you can still blow good soap bubbles using a soapy t-butanol
solution.Metacelsus - 1-11-2016 at 20:04
I don't think soap would work very well in glacial acetic acid. It would protonate the surfactant, and the head group would no longer be negatively
charged. (However, cationic surfactants might work.)DraconicAcid - 1-11-2016 at 21:15
Acetic acid will only freeze at 16 oC when pure, and even then it tends to supercool. I doubt it will freeze well when mixed with soap.chornedsnorkack - 2-11-2016 at 00:35
Could soap diminish the surface tension of fat? This time, with the aliphatic tails in the fat and the polar salts out of the surface?yobbo II - 2-11-2016 at 10:11
Do ordinary soap bubbles (water based) freeze at all?Maroboduus - 2-11-2016 at 10:19
Do ordinary soap bubbles (water based) freeze at all?
Yes, there are a lot of pictures on the internet.
But I think acidified soap would mean free fatty acids, so even if adding acetic acid worked to lower the freezing point they'd probably be pretty
horribly smelly bubbles.
Maybe you could blow bubbles out of a very thick collodion. Then they'd be permanent.
At least until somebody got too close to one with a match. (celluloid bubble filled with diethyl ether and alcohol fumes= very decorative fire hazard)
