Final answer:
The rate of dissolution in iced infused teas is dependent on the amount of sugar added and the temperature of the tea. Ice melting into the tea significantly lowers the temperature due to the heat required for the phase change. Tea is a homogeneous mixture and understanding heat transfer can predict the final temperature after ice is added.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Rate of Dissolution in Iced Infused Teas
When preparing iced infused teas, the rate at which sugar dissolves is influenced by various factors. The amount of sugar you add to the tea and the temperature of the liquid are crucial considerations. As one might expect, sugar dissolves more slowly in a cold beverage, which means that it typically requires more stirring to fully dissolve when making iced tea.
Considering the scientific explanations, when ice is added to tea, the final temperature of the tea will be somewhere between the initial temperatures of the hot tea and the ice. The heat of phase changes—such as ice melting—plays a substantial role in this temperature adjustment, with the tea often cooling down significantly as it gives up heat to melt the ice.
A tea solution is not chemically pure; it is a homogeneous mixture because its composition is uniform throughout. This is the result of brewing, where compounds from the tea leaves dissolve uniformly in water through filtration.
In a practical example, if a 50.0 g ice cube at 0.0°C is added to 500 mL of tea at 20.0°C, we can predict the tea's temperature once the ice has melted by applying thermodynamics. By substituting the known values of specific heat and the enthalpy of fusion for ice into a heat transfer equation, we can estimate the final temperature of the mixture, accounting for the heat that the tea loses and the ice gains during the melting process.