Pykrete

[Krowdon]

Does anybody know a good way to make this? I'm doing a project with it in environmental science but all the sawdust settles to the bottom of the water. Is that okay?

[windhound]

I haven't, but I'm going to hazard a guess you're not using enough wood pulp.
Google sayeth its 14% wood pulp and 86% water.  You're going to want to do that by weight, say 860g of water and 140g sawdust.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete -- the pile of wood shavings is much, much larger than the water. 
The idea seems to be for the wood pulp to absorb nearly all the water, giving the resulting ice block a fiber structure.

[Krowdon]

I haven't, but I'm going to hazard a guess you're not using enough wood pulp.
Google sayeth its 14% wood pulp and 86% water.  You're going to want to do that by weight, say 860g of water and 140g sawdust.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete -- the pile of wood shavings is much, much larger than the water. 
The idea seems to be for the wood pulp to absorb nearly all the water, giving the resulting ice block a fiber structure.

I see! Thanks, I'll try it out that way and let you know. I'll take pictures too. :)

[Gen. Volkov]

You can also do it with newspaper. Get a bunch of newspapers, soak them in water, then freeze.

[Krowdon]

Pykrete was a success. I had my block of Pykrete and my block of ice, and we timed how long it took each of them to melt in heated water.

I don't know if that was the best method, but that's what we could do in class.

The Pykrete took 3 times longer to melt than the regular ice did.