Which has a lower freezing point, salt water or fresh water?

Water is something we readily use without thinking twice. Yet being wet isn't a characteristic intrinsic to all forms of water. At zero degrees centigrade, for example, water begins to freeze. In the University College London, chemist Andrea Celler conducts an experiment to explain to us why salt water behaves vary differently than fresh water. Celler commences with a bowl of ice cubes. The thermometer reads zero degrees. This is both the freezing point of water and the melting point of ice. At zero degrees, water and ice are in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Water molecules are released from the ice, while at the same time, ice molecules are formed from the water. Celler now adds a bit of table salt to the bowl and stirs. The temperature drops, but look at this, the water doesn't freeze. The reason for this is tied to the sodium chloride ions in the salt water solution, shown here as blue and red circles. These charged particles disrupt the balance of the molecules, causing the number of water molecules that can hook onto ice molecules to decrease. Water thus freezes at a slower rate.

Scientists refer to this practice as lowering the freezing point. The Italian-born chemist adds more and more salt to the ice. Yet the freezing can't be lowered indefinitely and eventually stabilizes at 21 degrees below zero. The reason is that no more salt can be dissolved into the saline solution. At this point, the solution is said to have reached the saturation point. Seawater, in contrast, has about 35 grams of salt per liter of water - nowhere near as high a concentration of salt as our saturated solution. Nonetheless, it's still enough to have an impact on the water's freezing point, in this case lowering it to about minus two degrees.