Answer 1:
[For this I am assuming that the ice cube is
made of pure water. Results may differ if
the ice contains solutes.]
The rate at which the ice cube melts depends
on how quickly heat can be conducted from the
surroundings to the ice cube. When an ice
cube melts, the resulting water (only that from
the ice) is cold relative to most of the
surrounding liquid, that is, this cold water has
less thermal energy that can be transferred
to the ice to cause further melting. If that water
could be moved out of the way, then warm water
would replace it. Thus, the cube will melt
fastest in whichever solution (pure/salty/sugary
water) has the fastest movement of the cold water
away from the ice cube.
The density of water (and liquids in
general)
increases as temperature decreases
(essentially
because the molecules have less energy and
therefore tend to be a little bit closer to each
other).
This means that for the case of an ice cube
melting in pure water the cold water formed
from the melting ice is more dense than the
surrounding water. It will therefore sink
toward the bottom of the container and warm water
will replace it next to the ice cube. [This is
related to
buoyancy. An
object submerged in a fluid experiences an
upward force related to the mass of the fluid
displaced, which is related to the densities of
the object and the fluid. If the buoyant force is
greater than the downward pull of gravity, then
the object floats; if it is less, then the object
sinks.] However, solutions containing more than
a minuscule amount of salt or sugar will have a
density higher than that of pure water at any
temperature (salt in
table here, sugar in
plot here).
So, for both salt and sugar solutions the
(pure) water from the ice cube is less dense than
the surrounding solution; rather than sinking to
the bottom of the container, it will remain
"floating" on top of the solution and in contact
with the ice cube.
At this point, the transfer of thermal energy to
the ice cube depends on how well the surroundings
can conduct heat (the thermal
conductivity). A bit anticlimactically, it
turns out that both salt water and sugar water is
around 0.6 W/m-K (in
both (sugar) cases (salt) there is some
change due to concentration and temperature
). Thus, both solutions should conduct heat toward
the ice cube at nearly the same rate. (For what it
is worth I think the sugar would be a little
faster, but again it depends on concentration and
temperature of the solutions.)
To sum up a long answer, an ice cube will
melt slowest in purified water, and at roughly the
same rate for the salty and sugar water. This
is because warm water replaces the cold water for
the case of melting in purified water but not when
melting in either of the solutions. (
This is a good read for related concepts.)
[I would also like to point out that there are
some answers to the question with only pure and
salt water,
here. BUT, only the first one is decent; the
other two relate to melting point depression due
to solutes. This is a concept that sounds similar
and relevant, but is not actually related to the
question posed.]
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