A Sweet Briar College Learning Resource |
The Chemistry of Water
Properties
Professor Jill Granger
![]() IMAGE SOURCE: "Chemistry in Context" Wm C Brown Publishers, Dubuque Iowa, 2nd edition, A project of the American Chemical Society, ed: A. Truman Schwartz et al., 1997, Chapter 5 "The Wonder of Water"
Water is Weird !?
Ice Floats. That's not weird.... is it?
![]() The Structure of Ice IMAGE SOURCE: "Biochemistry", second edition, by D. Voet and J.G. Voet, John Wiley and Sons, Somerset NJ, 1995, Chapter 2 "Aqueous Solutions", pg 31
Water boils at 100°C
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![]() IMAGE SOURCE: "Chemistry in Context" Wm C Brown Publishers, Dubuque Iowa, 2nd edition, A project of the American Chemical Society, ed: A. Truman Schwartz et al., 1997, Chapter 5 "The Wonder of Water" Water is way out of line! It boils at an extremely high temperature for its size. Why? Because of the extensive network of Hydrogen bonds. Those H-bonds are cohesive forces - they want to hold the water molecules together - and there are a lot of them! The process of boiling requires that the molecules come apart: a process that takes a lot more energy than expected.
What's unusual about the freezing point?
How am I affected by these temperature - phase relationships?
Is there anything else?
![]() You've noticed and used water's high heat capacity yourself.
How's that?
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H20 - The Mystery, Art, and Science of Water
Chris Witcombe and Sang Hwang
Sweet Briar College