Unique physical and chemical properties of water

"In the bath and the bath, always and everywhere - eternal glory to the water!" - these poems by Korney Chukovsky are familiar from the very childhood. Water is everywhere. The physical and chemical properties of water are unique, and these are not empty words. In addition to influencing the life of every living organism (we all consist of water), weather parameters, climatic cataclysms, changes in the relief of the Earth's surface are often associated with water. The descent of glaciers during the last ice age formed the outlines of modern Europe. The currents of the World Ocean influence temperature on all continents.

Everyone knows that water can be in liquid water itself, solid ice and gaseous state steam. In this very fact, there is nothing unusual. The special physical and chemical properties of water, unlike the behavior of other chemical elements, affect most processes occurring on Earth.

If you turn to history, you can notice an interesting pattern. Medieval alchemists tried to make gold from different metals, and the properties of metals were always carefully studied, but the amazing properties of water attracted attention quite recently.

200 years ago, mankind believed that water consists of a single chemical element, and is not a chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen. Mankind already built powerful hydroelectric power stations, steam locomotives, steamers, water energy was used in many branches of industry and everyday life, and the structure of water has been studied extremely little. Only 80 years ago, isotope compounds of water were discovered.

Let's take a closer look at the physical and chemical properties of water. In addition to the simple H2O-hydrolyte molecules known to everyone, dihydrolys (H2O) 2 and trihydrolyls (H2O) 3 form in water. The difference between these compounds is that each of them contains not one, but two or three water molecules. The amount of such compounds depends on the state of water in it.

When the temperature of the water changes, each molecule changes its speed, hence the change in the distance between the molecules and the percentage of various aggregates. Steam mainly consists of hydrolys, this is due to the high rate of movement of molecules in the vapor state, which makes it impossible to form more cumbersome structures. Ice, on the contrary, basically contains trihydroly (up to 60%), we can say that there is practically no hydrolyte in it. Water in its composition has each of the aggregates, but dihydrolyls predominate in it.

Features of the structure of water significantly affect its density in various states. The density of ice is less than the density of water. Therefore, ice appears on the surface of all water bodies on Earth. The inhabitants of the sea and river depths do not freeze, from the cold they are protected by a thick layer of ice.

Water is a universal solvent. The dielectric constant characterizes the ability of any substance to dissolve, so in water this quantity is several times higher than that of a vacuum, let alone air. Water in its pure form is not found in nature, more than 80 water compounds with different elements of the periodic system have already been found in the World Ocean. Therefore, water is literally the basis of life on our planet.

Most often it is believed that solubility is a property of water, through which we drink it. Solubility helps to quickly remove unnecessary and processed substances from the body and at the same time allows you to deliver the necessary to various organs.

But in this case somehow forget about the heat capacity. The fact is that the smallest heat capacity of water is at a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius. And with the least heat capacity, the energy costs for changes are minimal, namely, this temperature is the main one in most warm-blooded animals and humans. These physical and chemical properties of water have a significant impact on everyone's life. If there is not enough water in the body, the person begins to be lazy, his head may be spinning, the processes occurring in the body slow down. Therefore, it is often enough to drink a glass of water to feel yourself in shape again.