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Steve Mould 20 Nov 2025 40 here now

The Unknown Phase of Matter

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Supercritical CO2 is used to extract caffeine from coffee, but this strange phase of carbon dioxide is really weird

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Comments (20)

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Thanks Steve. I'm not as ignorant as I was before viewing your videos. I thought I knew a little bit about everything, now I know a little bit about more of everything . Love your work.
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@braders790 From YouTube ↗ 22 Jan 2026 161
Hmm. Would love to see slow mo guys record the sudden dry ice popping into existence
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5:23 Steve mould is a hollow knight fan confirmed??
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Firstly, thank you so much for you channel! Secondly, @16:04 we pay respects to your taste buds in the name of science 🪦With all due respect to you, your sincere reaction was one of the highlights of your video. Sometimes, we appreciete more the lessons learned by mistakes.
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8:03 I saw a very simple super critical device that I can't find now. It contained a noble gas, neon I think, in a very thick walled fused quartz tube at ~70 Bar. The neon was liquid at room temperature but the heat from holding it in your hand was enough to cause the transition to supercritical fluid. I would encourage you to produce and sell those and if you do decide to do so please notify me via this post if you would be so kind.
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My mother when she sees my room: 16:05
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@MrNikolidas From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 154
A James Hoffmann collab attempting to get the most out of supercritical coffee using different liquids would be the greatest geek-fest on YouTube.
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@ZoneKei From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 139
The twin valley explanation is great. Intense!
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What would happen to a tiny boat is a question I'm constantly asking
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@gonun69 From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 363
The end is so fantastically weird. A dude in a field camping in a tent, wearing a suit, with a huge machine as tall as the tent, making terrible coffee and talking into a camera.
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2:15 "we could host it with a heat gun or something but we actually have a much better solution" 😅 this feels like some shade thrown at @NileRed
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I've always wondered about the floating boat in two-phase CO2 going supercritical. Thank you for making all of those boats, opening the chamber, closing it, repressurizing, over and over, to get a final conclusion. I've been working on a metal-glass seal that performs much longer than viton or any other elastomer seal for the chamber. Containing a small volume of SC CO2 for weeks or months is quite a challenge.
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@bobbler42 From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 588
16:30: James Hoffman has been summoned. If you say his name into a mirror thrice, he will optimise your bean to cup process, whether you want him to or not.
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@tehweez From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 669
Watching that chamber spontaneously decompress is a good demonstration of the forces you'd experience in a post dive accident without the liquefied human remains.
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@deancyrus1 From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 281
17:08 that's so cool. No we won't sell you one, it's free. That's because they love science and education. That means they love you for being part of that.
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@gregritter864 From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 1300
Optics guy here... Steve, if someone hasn't already said this... we've got to get a schlieren optics setup arranged around this to look at the cool phase differences in that as you hit that supercritical region! This is very cool. Nicely done, sir!
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@RataAlexandru From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 4000
First time I saw this phenomenon was in NileRed's video "Making aerogel".
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@G-bl8hj From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 4400
Steve mould- scientific neutral
Nile- scientific chaos
Styropyro- utter madness
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saw the thumbnail. said "oh boy time to learn about supercritical fluids again" still clicked even though I have a degree in this lmao
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@SteveMould From YouTube ↗ 22 Nov 2025 272
Who even was that on the phone?
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