Does Pulp Change Frozen OJ Expansion?

Most recent answer: 04/16/2013

Q:
I am going to conduct an experiment for elementary students that takes different types of orange juice (no pulp, some pulp, and high pulp) and freeze in clear containers. I am hoping the end result will have different expansions for each of the containers. Is this due to the pulp giving the water impurities so it expands more or would it be due to the more water in the no pulp will make it expand more?
- Brooke (age 20)
South Dakota
A:
We don't know quite how the result will turn out. A good guess would be that since only the actual water expands on freezing, having some pulp in there would slightly reduce the expansion. I bet the effect is quite small, since the actual volume occupied by the pulp probably is only a small fraction of the total.

Mike W.

(published on 04/16/2013)