Making Ice Cream with Liquid Nitrogen

Students in Calvin Swartzendruber’s Chemistry classes learned about the relationship between temperature, volume, and pressure while performing interesting experiments. Watch youtube video.

Liquid nitrogen, which “boils” at −321 °F produces rapid freezing. By submerging different objects into the liquid nitrogen students were able to see the affects of the low temperature in relation to volume, pressure, and hardness of the objects.

Items such as a ball and flower were frozen in the boiling liquid nitrogen and then broke when thrown against another hard object.

A banana was used to drive a nail into a board.

Students concluded by combining the liquid nitrogen with a ice cream mix to make their own ice cream.