A cooling bath or ice bath, in laboratory chemistry practice, is a liquid mixture which is used to maintain low temperatures, typically between 13 °C and −196 °C. These low temperatures are used to collect liquids after distillation, to remove solvents using a rotary evaporator, or to perform a chemical reaction below room temperature.
A typical experimental setup for an aldol reaction. Both flasks are submerged in a dry ice/acetone cooling bath (−78 °C) the temperature of which is being monitored by a thermocouple (the wire on the left).
Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about −196 °C (−321 °F; 77 K). It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, mobile liquid whose viscosity is about one tenth that of acetone (i.e. roughly one thirtieth that of room temperature water). Liquid nitrogen is widely used as a coolant.
Liquid nitrogen
Students preparing homemade ice cream with a dewar of liquid nitrogen
Filling a liquid nitrogen Dewar from a storage tank