Rustum Roy , W.A. Tiller , Iris Bell , M. R. Hoover
This paper provides an interdisciplinary base of information on the structure of liquid water. It begins with a synthesis built on the information base on the structure5 of noncrystalline, inorganic, covalently-bonded condensed liquid phases, such as SiO , S, Se, P, and H O, which exists in the materials science literature.
The data for water are analyzed through the prism ofished algorithm well-establs in materials research: the connection of properties to structure; the pressure-temperature (P-T) phase diagrams; the phenomenon of epitaxy; the phenomenon of liquid-liquid phase separation; the stability of two phase colloids; and, the recently discovered effects of weak magnetic and electric fields on the structure of simple inorganic oxides. A thorough combing of the literature of the condensed matter properties reflecting structural features of essentially pure water obtained via the normal processes of preparing homeopathic remedies, provides another rich data base. The examination of these data through the standard materials science paradigms leads to the following conclusion: Many different structures of liquid water must exist within the range of observations and processes encountered near ambient conditions.
A typical sample of water in these experimental ranges no doubt consists of a statistical-mechanical-determined assemblage of monomers and oligomers (clusters) of various sizes up to at least several hundred H2O units. The importance of the structural similarity of SiO2 and OH2 is very relevant to the structure of the latter as well as to the probability of epitaxy in controlling at least the region contiguous to the silicate glass surfaces of many common containers. The most distinctive feature of bonding in liquid water is not only the “well-known hydrogen bonds, but the necessary presence of a wide range” of van der Waals bonds between and among the various oligomeric (cluster) structural units.
It is this range of very weak bonds that could account for the remarkable ease of changing the structure of water, which in turn could help explain the half-dozen well-known anomalies in its properties. In its subtler form, such weak bonds would also allow for the changes of structure caused by electric and 1 Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State, Emeritus, and Founding Director of the Materials Research Laboratory at Penn State (rroy@psu.edu). 2 Professor Emeritus and former Department Chair of Materials Science, Stanford University . 3 Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, Fami ly and Community Medicine, and Public Health, Director of Research, Program in Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona (ibell@u.arizona.edu). 4 Assistant Professor, Materials Research Institute, Penn State(rickhoover@psu.edu)
The term structure is used as in all materials research to designate the 3D arrangement of atoms or molecules, not the chemical usage of the term describing the structure of a single molecule or oligomer.
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