Kelly is working with Michael W.W. Adams, a biochemistry professor at the University of Georgia who is an expert in microbes that live in places hotter than 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the boilingpoint of water.
Because this was a reactor that operated on water that was already at its boilingpoint, this also meant that the pressure inside the reactor was rising as well.
But eventually, each atom encounters a plate at a temperature lower than its boilingpoint, at which point it sticks to the plate, just as water freezes when poured on to dry-ice.