Scientists have found that liquid water can exist in two different forms at the same time
It is known from the school physics course that water, one of the most common substances on the globe, can exist in three forms – in the form of water vapor, liquid and ice. However, a group of researchers from Sweden found that in fact everything is much more complicated, at low temperatures, close to the freezing point, water is a mixture of two liquids, radically different from each other in density and molecular structure.
“Under some boundary conditions, water behaves very strange,” says Anders Nilsson, professor of physical chemistry at Stockholm University. “At low temperatures, water exists as a mixture of two different liquids.”
Investigating the molecular structure of water cooled almost to the freezing point using X-rays, scientists discovered the presence in the volume of water of two types of liquid, with a high density and a lower one, differing from each other in the spatial position of water molecules and their number per unit volume. This fact serves as the first proof of the theory put forward by Anders Nielson several years ago, according to which all water on Earth is in constant motion, changing from one form to another. And these phase transitions, involving infinitesimal volumes of water, last only a few picoseconds.
If the “dual nature” of water is confirmed by the results of other studies, this will serve as an explanation for some of the unusual properties of liquid water, in particular, its high heat capacity, and the fact that water acquires its maximum density only at temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius and above.
It is still not entirely clear to what practical things the discovery made by Swedish scientists can lead to. However, a deeper understanding of the properties of water can lead to the development of new and more efficient technologies for treatment and desalination, which, in turn, will solve one of the most pressing problems in some parts of the worl
d. Source: http://dailytechinfo.org