Burning Ice

IMAGINE: You are holding an ice cube in your hands.

What will happen? It will melt and turn into water because of your body heat. If a flame comes near the ice cube, it will melt even faster. In addition, you don’t want to hold the ice cube for a very long time, since the low temperatures will soon start to hurt your fingers.

What is the difference between "normal ice" and "burning ice"?

The burning ice, or methane hydrate, as it is called by chemists, behaves totally differently. It is obtained from the bottom of the ocean at a few hundred metres depth and burns like a piece of wood when lit.

How can that be?

Unlike the ice you put in your coke as an ice cube, this ice does not only consists of water. In addition, it contains a gas called methane. The individual ice molecules assemble into numerous cage-like structures, which enclose the methane gas.

How does the methane get into the ice?

The ice on the bottom of the sea is subjected to an enormous pressure, as the huge amounts of water above are extremely heavy. Furthermore, it is very cold down there. In a depth of several hundred metres the seawater can have temperatures below 0 °C and still be liquid! Moreover, there is a lot of plankton on the bottom of the sea - these are minute organisms, which float around in the water and deposit on the bottom. When they decompose, methane is produced.

How do you induce the ice to burn?

Once the ice is brought to the surface, the enormous pressure of the water falls away. As a consequence, the gas is set in motion and causes the ice to fizz like pop. A brief touch with a lighter or a match is enough to set the "white gold" on fire.

Besides...

According to estimations, our planet is said to contain more than twice the amount of methane hydrate than the amount of all charcoal, natural gases and mineral oils together! Will our cars and heating systems be fuelled with "burning ice" in the future?