Sublimation?

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Easy Livin’ 3000

Easy Livin’ 3000

Minister of Fire
Dec 23, 2015
3,018
SEPA
Back in my college days I learned about sublimation, the process of H2O going directly from solid to gas without going liquid. We've all seen it in action as snow and ice disappears even without a thaw.

As we are experiencing a single digit stretch with tons of wind immediately following a big rain, I wonder how much of this occurs from the wood stacks? Seems meaningful from my entirely unscientific observations.
 
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We've had this discussion a few times over the years, your wood is slowly losing moisture due to sublimation even in this below zero cold.
 
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weatherguy said:
We've had this discussion a few times over the years, your wood is slowly losing moisture due to sublimation even in this below zero cold.
Click to expand...
weatherguy said:
We've had this discussion a few times over the years, your wood is slowly losing moisture due to sublimation even in this below zero cold.
Click to expand...
I sure do enjoy this drying wind after this recent wet year. Even if it was 5° this morning. 20 mph+ for many hours yesterday and today. I imagine this accelerates the process?
 
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It's pretty negligible. Surface moisture is lost but I don't think there's any mobility for the frozen water trapped deeper to get out. If you had sucky wood and were trying to get by everyone would say bring into the heat of the house not leave it out in the cold.

I "think" the freezing process may be beneficial as far as bursting cells making drying easier later but don't have anything to back that up.
 
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jatoxico said:
It's pretty negligible. Surface moisture is lost but I don't think there's any mobility for the frozen water trapped deeper to get out. If you had sucky wood and were trying to get by everyone would say bring into the heat of the house not leave it out in the cold.

I "think" the freezing process may be beneficial as far as bursting cells making drying easier later but don't have anything to back that up.
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That sounds right. Why not? Water expands when freezing, and stuff loses elasticity as it gets colder and older. Put those two together, and it makes sense.
 
ED 3000 said:
That sounds right. Why not? Water expands when freezing, and stuff loses elasticity as it gets colder and older. Put those two together, and it makes sense.
Click to expand...

“Makes sense” is good enough for me when it comes to unscientific thinking. [emoji4]. Logical common sense thinking is what makes the world go round; or maybe there is some scientific reason for that too[emoji848]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
There's a lot more sublimation going on with ice than I would have thought. Search water phase diagram and ice sublimation.

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-sublimation-solid-ice-quickly-evaporation.html

A good example was just observed here the past two days. I had a half cigar on the porch Sunday night. Single digits temperature and the porch had a coating of snow Sunday night due to the storm. Single digits all day yesterday, and the porch doesn't get any sun. The thin coating of snow was gone for my cigar last night.

Low temperature sublimation in a cold room of a very strained hydrocarbon gave a crystal for a low temperature X-Ray crystal structure 36 years ago when I was in grad school. There was just a few degree difference between the oil bath I had the flask in and the upper walls of the flask in the cold room, and it grew beautiful crystals. :)

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja00319a048
 
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PaulOinMA said:
There's a lot more sublimation going on with ice than I would have thought. Search water phase diagram and ice sublimation.

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-sublimation-solid-ice-quickly-evaporation.html

A good example was just observed here the past two days. I had a half cigar on the porch Sunday night. Single digits temperature and the porch had a coating of snow Sunday night due to the storm. Single digits all day yesterday, and the porch doesn't get any sun. The thin coating of snow was gone for my cigar last night.

Low temperature sublimation in a cold room of a very strained hydrocarbon gave a crystal for a low temperature X-Ray crystal structure 36 years ago when I was in grad school. There was just a few degree difference between the oil bath I had the flask in and the upper walls of the flask in the cold room, and it grew beautiful crystals. :)

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja00319a048
Click to expand...
Interesting anecdote. Within a flask, there would be no air movement, curious what effect wind and variation in temperature (30° vs. 5° f) have? Seems significant, as with evaporation.
 
Hoping the sublimation would work well on css wood. The driest air of the year is in winter when you get 20% humidity on sunny cold days. The best sunny day in summer here your lucky if the humidity gets below 60%.
 
leave a tray of ice cubes in the freezer for a while. poof, they're gone...
 
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