Properties of water
Water is a polar inorganic compound that is at room temperature a tasteless and odorless liquid, which is nearly colorless apart from an inherent hint of blue. It is by far the most studied chemical compound and is described as the "universal solvent" and the "solvent of life". It is the most abundant substance on the surface of Earth and the only common substance to exist as a solid, liquid, and gas on Earth's surface. It is also the third most abundant molecule in the universe.
Water molecules form hydrogen bonds with each other and are strongly polar. This polarity allows it to dissociate ions in salts and bond to other polar substances such as alcohols and acids, thus dissolving them. Its hydrogen bonding causes its many unique properties, such as having a solid form less dense than its liquid form, a relatively high boiling point of 100 °C for its molar mass, and a high heat capacity.
Water is amphoteric, meaning that it can exhibit properties of an acid or a base, depending on the pH of the solution that it is in; it readily produces both hydron | and hydroxide| ions. Related to its amphoteric character, it undergoes self-ionization. The product of the activities, or approximately, the concentrations of and is a constant, so their respective concentrations are inversely proportional to each other.
Physical properties
Water is the chemical substance with chemical formula ; one molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom. Water is a tasteless, odorless liquid at ambient temperature and pressure. Liquid water has weak absorption bands at wavelengths of around 750 nm which cause it to appear to have a blue color. This can easily be observed in a water-filled bath or wash-basin whose lining is white. Large ice crystals, as in glaciers, also appear blue.Under standard conditions, water is primarily a liquid, unlike other analogous hydrides of the oxygen family, which are generally gaseous. This unique property of water is due to hydrogen bonding. The molecules of water are constantly moving concerning each other, and the hydrogen bonds are continually breaking and reforming at timescales faster than 200 femtoseconds. However, these bonds are strong enough to create many of the peculiar properties of water, some of which make it integral to life.
Water, ice, and vapor
Within the Earth's atmosphere and surface, the liquid phase is the most common and is the form that is generally denoted by the word "water". The solid phase of water is known as ice and commonly takes the structure of hard, amalgamated crystals, such as ice cubes, or loosely accumulated granular crystals, like snow. Aside from common hexagonal crystalline ice, other crystalline and amorphous phases of ice are known. The gaseous phase of water is known as water vapor. Visible steam and clouds are formed from minute droplets of water suspended in the air.Water also forms a supercritical fluid. The critical temperature is 647 K and the critical pressure is 22.064 MPa. In nature, this only rarely occurs in extremely hostile conditions. A likely example of naturally occurring supercritical water is in the hottest parts of deep water hydrothermal vents, in which water is heated to the critical temperature by volcanic plumes and the critical pressure is caused by the weight of the ocean at the extreme depths where the vents are located. This pressure is reached at a depth of about 2200 meters: much less than the mean depth of the ocean.
Heat capacity and heats of vaporization and fusion
Water has a very high specific heat capacity of 4184 J/ at 20 °C —the second-highest among all the heteroatomic species, as well as a high heat of vaporization, both of which are a result of the extensive hydrogen bonding between its molecules. These unusual properties allow water to moderate Earth's climate by buffering large fluctuations in temperature. Most of the additional energy stored in the climate system since 1970 has accumulated in the oceans.The specific enthalpy of fusion of water is 333.55 kJ/kg at 0 °C: the same amount of energy is required to melt ice as to warm ice from −160 °C up to its melting point or to heat the same amount of water by about 80 °C. Of common substances, only that of ammonia is higher. This property confers resistance to melting on the ice of glaciers and drift ice. Before and since the advent of mechanical refrigeration, ice was and still is in common use for retarding food spoilage.
The specific heat capacity of ice at −10 °C is 2030 J/ and the heat capacity of steam at 100 °C is 2080 J/.
Density of water and ice
The density of water is about : this relationship was originally used to define the gram. The density varies with temperature, but not linearly: as the temperature increases, the density rises to a peak at and then decreases; the initial increase is unusual because most liquids undergo thermal expansion so that the density only decreases as a function of temperature. The increase observed for water from to and for a few other liquids is described as negative thermal expansion. Regular, hexagonal ice is also less dense than liquid water—upon freezing, the density of water decreases by about 9%.These peculiar effects are due to the highly directional bonding of water molecules via the hydrogen bonds: ice and liquid water at low temperature have comparatively low-density, low-energy open lattice structures. The breaking of hydrogen bonds on melting with increasing temperature in the range 0–4 °C allows for a denser molecular packing in which some of the lattice cavities are filled by water molecules. Above 4 °C, however, thermal expansion becomes the dominant effect, and water near the boiling point is about 4% less dense than water at.
Under increasing pressure, ice undergoes a number of transitions to other polymorphs with higher density than liquid water, such as ice II, ice III, high-density amorphous ice, and very-high-density amorphous ice.
The unusual density curve and lower density of ice than of water is essential for much of the life on earth—if water were most dense at the freezing point, then in winter the cooling at the surface would lead to convective mixing. Once 0 °C are reached, the water body would freeze from the bottom up, and all life in it would be killed. Furthermore, given that water is a good thermal insulator, some frozen lakes might not completely thaw in summer. As it is, the inversion of the density curve leads to a stable layering for surface temperatures below 4 °C, and with the layer of ice that floats on top insulating the water below, even e.g., Lake Baikal in central Siberia freezes only to about 1 m thickness in winter. In general, for deep enough lakes, the temperature at the bottom stays constant at about 4 °C throughout the year.
Density of saltwater and ice
The density of saltwater depends on the dissolved salt content as well as the temperature. Ice still floats in the oceans, otherwise, they would freeze from the bottom up. However, the salt content of oceans lowers the freezing point by about 1.9 °C and lowers the temperature of the density maximum of water to the former freezing point at 0 °C. This is why, in ocean water, the downward convection of colder water is not blocked by an expansion of water as it becomes colder near the freezing point. The oceans' cold water near the freezing point continues to sink. So creatures that live at the bottom of cold oceans like the Arctic Ocean generally live in water 4 °C colder than at the bottom of frozen-over fresh water lakes and rivers.As the surface of saltwater begins to freeze the ice that forms is essentially salt-free, with about the same density as freshwater ice. This ice floats on the surface, and the salt that is "frozen out" adds to the salinity and density of the seawater just below it, in a process known as brine rejection. This denser saltwater sinks by convection and the replacing seawater is subject to the same process. This produces essentially freshwater ice at −1.9 °C on the surface. The increased density of the seawater beneath the forming ice causes it to sink towards the bottom. On a large scale, the process of brine rejection and sinking cold salty water results in ocean currents forming to transport such water away from the Poles, leading to a global system of currents called the thermohaline circulation.
Miscibility and condensation
Water is miscible with many liquids, including ethanol in all proportions. Water and most oils are immiscible, usually forming layers according to increasing density from the top. This can be predicted by comparing the polarity. Water being a relatively polar compound will tend to be miscible with liquids of high polarity such as ethanol and acetone, whereas compounds with low polarity will tend to be immiscible and poorly soluble such as with hydrocarbons.As a gas, water vapor is completely miscible with air. On the other hand, the maximum water vapor pressure that is thermodynamically stable with the liquid at a given temperature is relatively low compared with total atmospheric pressure. For example, if the vapor's partial pressure is 2% of atmospheric pressure and the air is cooled from 25 °C, starting at about 22 °C, water will start to condense, defining the dew point, and creating fog or dew. The reverse process accounts for the fog burning off in the morning. If the humidity is increased at room temperature, for example, by running a hot shower or a bath, and the temperature stays about the same, the vapor soon reaches the pressure for phase change and then condenses out as minute water droplets, commonly referred to as steam.
A saturated gas or one with 100% relative humidity is when the vapor pressure of water in the air is at equilibrium with vapor pressure due to water; water will fail to lose mass through evaporation when exposed to saturated air. Because the amount of water vapor in the air is small, relative humidity, the ratio of the partial pressure due to the water vapor to the saturated partial vapor pressure, is much more useful. Vapor pressure above 100% relative humidity is called supersaturated and can occur if the air is rapidly cooled, for example, by rising suddenly in an updraft.