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Aug 13, 2018

The behavior of water—scientists find new properties of H2O

Posted by in category: energy

A team of scientists has uncovered new molecular properties of water—a discovery of a phenomenon that had previously gone unnoticed.

Liquid water is known to be an excellent transporter of its own autoionization products; that is, the charged species obtained when a water molecule (H2O) is split into protons (H+) and hydroxide ions (OH). This remarkable property of water makes it a critical component in emerging electrochemical energy production and storage technologies such as fuel cells; indeed, life itself would not be possible if water did not possess this characteristic.

Water is known to consist an intricate network of weak, directional interactions known as . For nearly a century, it was thought that the mechanisms by which water transports the H+ and OH ions were mirror images of each other – identical in all ways except for directions of the hydrogen bonds involved in the process.

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