What happens when an ice cube cools a drink?

Answer 1

While most people assume that ice cools a drink by heat conduction (by putting something cool into something warm, the heat of the warm will transfer to the cold until an equilibrium has been reached), this is only a very minor part of the ice-cooling effect.

Ice will need a significant amount of energy in order for it to melt. Ice is basically water, held together in a solid form by hydrogen bonds between the water-molecules (or more specifically, the hydrogen-atoms which are part of the water-molecules). It takes up a lot of energy for these bonds to break and the ice to melt.

To put this in perspective: the amount of energy needed to melt 1 gram of ice is about 79.73 Joules. For those who remember their physics 101, 1 J is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of (liquid) water by 1 degree Celcius. Hence, the amount of energy needed to melt an ice cube, would raise the temperature of an equivalent amount of liquid water with nearly 80 degrees Celcius.

To conclude, the cooling effect of ice on a drink is partly because the ice will warm up from, e.g., -18 degrees to 0 degrees, but will then continue to absorb energy from the drink by melting.

Answer 2

The temperature of ice is very low. When it comes into contact with your drink, the ice absorbs heat from the drink and conversely, the drink loses heat to to the ice. Hence, by losing heat, the drink gets cooler.

Answer 3

Ice is cold and the heat of any system evens out in time. After a time, the faster moving molecules in the "drink" slow down as they encounter the slow moving molecules of the ice, the ice melts to water (that phase transformation in itself requires energy that is taken from the "drink" and the cold water with it's slowly moving molecules slows the molecules of the "drink"..
The ice takes in the heat from the drink and releases the cold from the ice cube. this is called endothermal heat.

Answer 4

The electromagnetic waves transfer into the drink so radiation causes the drink to cool.

Answer 5

The ice (solid phase) is transformed in water (liquid phase).

Answer 6

The drink melts the ice, thus cooling the drink.

It's called heat exchange.

Answer 7

Heat energy moves from the liquid to the ice ... heating & melting the ice.

Answer 8

it doesnt