Someone mentioned an interesting situation a while back and I was wondering if anyone here knew the answer.
The issue was to do with the storage of liquid bromine.
The owner of the bromine wished to store it outside and below ground as it would remain undisturbed this way and additionally far away from human habitation.
She stated that the ambient temperature outside was likely to fall below negative 7.2C during the storage period. The bromine would therefore probably solidify if it were stored outside.
There was therefore a concern that the bottles may shatter if bromine expands as it freezes like water does (most things don't, but the following URL makes you think it might be possible:
http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=1994Aug10.173135.2685%40inet.d48.lilly.com
. Pretty anecdotal, but storage of bromine is not something that you can afford to mess up.
The data that can be found via google on the density of solid Bromine is pretty limited and only provides info for Bromine at 5 Kelvin and 123 Kelvin. Both these data points suggest that solid bromine is more dense at these temperatures than it is as a liquid. However, the density of solid bromine at -8 Centigrade may be lower than liquid bromine at -6C.
Does anyone here have any experience with frozen bromine or know the density of solid bromine at say -8C? Do you think bottles of bromine may break upon freezing (this is obviously a small scale environmental disaster).
Inside storage was deemed to be out of the question as this meant close to human habitation and even when locked away a fire can cause toxic clouds of bromine leading to injury or death for a fire crew that is not fore-warned.