Concentrating Coke

I am doing a project on the on the "freezing point depression". One of the products i was freezing (COKE) had a very interesting result. The coke seperated from the ice! How and Why did this happen?
- Matt (age 13)
Edwards Middle Shool, Boston,Massachusetts

Matt- I’ll bet it happened with other solutes too, but just wasn’t as noticable. When you freeze water-based solutions. the solute molecules don’t fit into the ice crystals, and are almost entirely left out in the liquid solution. For Coke, that means the phosphoric acid and sugar and caramel color get concentrated out in the liquid, easy to detect by eye and by taste.

Mike W.

(published on 10/22/2007)