Transitioning water to an enhanced heat-conducting phase

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that supercooling water at the bottom of a container significantly enhances its thermal conductivity, revealing a previously unreported high-conductivity phase of water.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to induce an enhanced heat-conducting phase in water through bottom supercooling, significantly increasing its thermal conductivity.

Findings

Temperature gradient reduced from 32°C to 0.75°C

Effective thermal conductivity increased from ~0.607 W/mK to ~24 W/mK

Supercooled water at the bottom enables high thermal conduction

Abstract

Water can be transitioned to an enhanced heat-conducting phase by supercooling only the water at the bottom of a container. The temperature gradient across the 4 cm in the center of an 8 cm long column of water with a 397 mW heat source at the top was lowered from 32oC to 0.75oC when the temperature at the bottom of the column was lowered from 1.2 oC to -5.6oC. The effective thermal conductivity of the water was increased from ~0.607 W/mK to ~24 W/mK. This result demonstrates that water has a high effective thermal conducting phase that has not been previously reported.