What does Liquid Nitrogen do to Your skin?by TKOR
Abstract:
My assumption is that Liquid Nitrogen will not do anything to our skin. We pour LiquidNitrogen to our skin to see what happen. The result is that when Liquid Nitrogen reach to our skin,a lot of liquid Nitrogen turn into gas state. The person is fine after the experiment.The reason for that is ours body temperature has 37°C when Liquid Nitrogen contact with our skin,it starts to boil and become gas that prevent further contact with Liquid Nitrogen. Overall, ourresult show that Liquid Nitrogen will not harm our skin if only for a short period of time.
Introduction:
Liquid Nitrogen is Nitrogen at temperature below -195.8 °C. When temperatures are aboveits Boiling point, it become gas. From this experiment, we able to see air can be a pretty goodinsulation. Base on Leidenfrost effect, “we know that if liquid is close to a surface that is muchhotter than it boiling point, it produces an insulating vapor layer that keeps the liquid from boilingrapidly.”( Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, 1751) My hypothesis is Liquid Nitrogen will not doanything to our skin if and only if our skin contact the Liquid Nitrogen in a short period of timebecause the gas Nitrogen will protect our skin from Liquid Nitrogen .
Method and Material:
1. Prepare a cup of Liquid Nitrogen.
2. Remember to wear a goggle
3. pour that cup of liquid nitrogen into our hand ( remember this process could bedangerous if it last for too long because you skin temperature is low at that time).
4. record what happen to you skin after step 3.
Result:
The person is fine. His skin has not change color, and he said it does not feel like anything.(There is no data like skin temperature because TKRO has not provide data).
Discussion:
The result support my hypothesis. Liquid Nitrogen will not freeze our skin if our skin in ashort period of time. Liquid Nitrogen is become gas when it contacts with our skin, and the gaspushing the Liquid Nitrogen out and preventing our skin contact with Liquid Nitrogen. Since myhypothesis is correct, which mean air could be a good insulation. We could use this fact to developa lighter but warmer clothe, a better container that could prevent heat emissions, etc.
Conclusion:
We want to see how air could prevent heat transmitting to or transmitting out from our skinfrom this experiment. We find out that Liquid Nitrogen will not freeze our skin in a short period oftime because when Liquid Nitrogen contact with our skin, our skin temperature quickly evaporate the Liquids Nitrogen and Nitrogen gas pushing the Liquid Nitrogen out and preventing our skincontact with Liquid Nitrogen. The result can be use in clothing. For example, the down jacket is sowarm because it “create thousands of tiny air pockets which trap warm air and retain heat”.(mountainwarehouse.com)
Acknowledgements:
Appreciate TKOR to do this experiment, and my classmate Fahad Faruqi, Amir Zman, andJakob Torres to give their review to my draft.
Reference:
TKRO experiment https://youtu.be/l1XRspReAvI .
Leidenfrost effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect .
Down Jacket https://www.mountainwarehouse.com/expert-advice/down-jacketguide#:~:text=A%20down%20jacket%20is%20a,warm%20in%20cold%20winter%20weather.
