Sodium Acetate heat pads

Posted on January 19, 2006
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 333 views |

QuantumHeatMy gf brought a couple of QuantumHeat heat packs home from work today and they are, at the molecular level, easily as much fun to play with as 10 lbs of silly putty and a hammer. Maybe more so.

Essentially plastic pouches filled with sodium acetate and water, these heat pads work by storing up energy provides by liquifying the solution through boiling, at which point it enters a stable but super-cooled state. Clicking a little plastic doohickey in the pouch introduces just enough instability to initiate the resolidification process which releases all the stored up potential energy as heat. Voila - super-cool (in so many ways, ha!) reusable heat packs.

Most of the fun comes from watching the things recrystalize before your eyes.

If you like heat packs like I like heat packs, get yourself some of these bad boys.

(Here’s a better description of the process, complete with fancy numbers, from How Things Work.)

Comments

2 Responses to “Sodium Acetate heat pads”

  1. Mitchua on January 19th, 2006 7:54 pm

    You gotta bring one of these to the office! HC, DUDE!

  2. MrHappy on January 19th, 2006 10:44 pm

    I will… what does HC mean?

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