Notetaker: Eva van Dijk Class: 91161 Cell Biology and Genetics Date: 16/08/17

Water and Buffers in Cells

Krishneel Singh will be the lecturer for the next couple of lectures.

The next few lectures will not be delivered traditionally – you need to view the linked YouTube
videos (3hr) and understand the content and the lecture will go through summary points and
Socrative questions.

1 or 2 slides have been added since they were uploaded but are not examinable so don’t panic .

This lecture relates to chapter 3 of the Pearson’s text.

At the end of today you should be able to:

 List and explain the four properties of water that emerge from hydrogen bonds
 Distinguish between following sets of terms
 Define acid, base, and pH
 Explain how buffers work.

Overview
 Water is the biological medium on earth and is needed for all living organisms
o 60% of your body is water – this is because it has such important properties for life
 40% of that is inside cells
 Water is polar, so opposite ends have opposite charges. This is because it has a polar
covalent bond between the oxygen and its associated hydrogen (there is an uneven
distribution of electrons in the bond, creating a negative charge on the oxygen side). This
means that water forms hydrogen bonds. All of the properties of water discussed today can
be attributed to this.

Four Emergent Properties of Water that Facilitate Life

1. Cohesive Behaviour
o Bonding between the water molecules with H bonds is called cohesion.
o This is really important foe helping liquid water stick together. This is NOT adhesion
(which is attraction between water and anything else, for example plant cell walls).
o Cohesive behaviours in Plants
 Plants use the cohesive and adhesive behaviour of water to survive.
 They need water to move against gravity from the ground to the leaves.
 Water moves up the capillaries – hydrogen bonds hold them together and
adhesion sticks them to the cell wall. Evaporation from the leaves pulls the
water up in a “chian”
o Surface Tension
 Surface tension is the line visible at the top of the water. It is a measure of
how hard it is to break the surface of a liquid.
 This is due to cohesion. In the main body of water, the molecules are pulled
from all directions by its neighbours. At the surface, it is pulled down by its
below neighbours but more strongly by their sideways neighbours. This
causes the surface to contract and be pulled downwards. If any force pulls
upwards this will break the entire surface tension. This is the reason that
water forms spherical droplets. Some animals use surface tension to stand
on top of water.

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Notetaker: Eva van Dijk Class: 91161 Cell Biology and Genetics Date: 16/08/17

2. Temperature Moderation
o Water can absorb heat from warmer air and releases stored heat into cooler air with
only a small change in its own temperature.
o It can do this because it has a high specific heat and a high heat of vaporisation.
o Thermodynamics refresher:
 Kinetic energy is the movement of molecules or atoms.
 When we average the movement of these molecules we call it temperature.
This is measured WITHOUT a given volume.
 Thermal energy is the kinetic energy of molecules within a given volume. A
pool might have a higher thermal energy than a cup of boiling water even
though the cup has a higher temperature.
 Heat is the transfer of thermal energy from one body to another.
 Celsius is a measure of temperature using degrees
 Calories is the amount of heat required to raise 1g of water by 1 OC.
 The specific heat of a substance is the amount of heat that must be
absorbed or lost for 1 gram of that substance to change its temperature by
1OC. The specific heat of water is 1cal/g/ OC. Water resists changes in
temperature due to its high specific heat.
o It has a high specific heat due to its hydrogen bonds. Heat is released when bonds
form, absorbed when they break.
o Evaporative Cooling
 Evaporation is liquid  gas.
 The heat of vaporisation is the heat which is required to evaporate 1g of a
substance into a gas. Water need a large amount of energy to vaporise.
 As a liquid evaporates, its remaining surface cools. This is evaporative
cooling. Speediest (highest temperature) molecules evaporate leaving the
slower (lower temp) molecules behind, leaving it cooler.
3. Expands upon Freezing
o Ice floats on water because the hydrogen bonds in ice are more structured and
organised, creating a structure that is less dense than water.
 Each water molecule can have 4 others linked to it if the water molecules
are not moving (low kinetic energy/temperature). When water is in a liquid
state they are moving too fast to bind, bound to an average of 3.4
molecules.
o Water reaches its greatest density at 4 OC.
o When frozen it forms a lattice/crystal structure with extra space.
4. Good Solvent
o A solution is a liquid that is a homogenous mixture of substances.
o A solvent is the dissolving agent of the solution.
o The solute is the thing that is dissolved.
o An aqueous solution is a solution where water is the solvent.
o Water is a good solvent because of its hydrogen bonding. The polarity means that
water is easily attracted to other polar molecules which are abundant in nature. It
dissolves a material by surrounding a molecule with a charge, surrounding it with a
hydration shield and pulling it away from its neighbours. “Like dissolves like”.
o Water can even dissolve non-ionic polar molecules, even if they are large e.g.
proteins, so long as they have ionic/polar regions.

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Notetaker: Eva van Dijk Class: 91161 Cell Biology and Genetics Date: 16/08/17

 This gets a bit trickier when the carbon chain gets really long – once it is too
big the polar charge will be negated.
o Your body will fold all the proteins and such that it makes so that the hydrophilic
elements are on the outside and the molecule is soluble in water. (With exceptions).
This is why correct protein folding is so important!
o Hydrophilic/Hydrophobic substances
 Hydrophilic has an affinity for water
 Hydrophobic does not have an affinity for water
o Most biochemical reactions occur in water. Simple Chemistry Review:
 Molecular mass = atomic mass of a compound
 Mole = 6.02 x 1023 molecules (this is Avogadro’s number)
 Molarity (M) is the number of moles of solute per litre of solution.
 M = moles/L

Role of Water in Biochemical Reactions

 Water can go through:
o Condensation reaction – water is released
o Hydrolysis reaction – water is used as part of the reaction
 E.g. joining 2 amino acids to form a protein forming a peptide bond –
condensation reaction. In the reverse of that (breaking the peptide bond)
water has to come in and stabilise the structure – hydrolysis
 Next week’s practical will involve trypsin, an enzyme which hydrolyses proteins.
 Water is also a metabolite:
o When body uses glucose it releases CO2 and H2O
o When photosynthesis happens it uses H2O

Acids and Bases

We will learn:

 Basic principles of pH
 Calculating pH of acids and bases
 How buffers play a role in our body

pH
 When water exists in a given state it will ionise.
 This means it will dissociate – separate into its elements OH - and H+.
o The molecule with the extra hydrogen is hydronium H3O+ (often represented as H +)
 Dissociation of water is important because we use it to define pH essentially. When water
dissociates it is in a state of equilibrium, so changes in concentrations of either H + or OH- can
cause drastic changes.
 Equilibrium constant stuff is NOT EXAMINABLE.
o Water dissociates into equal parts H+ and OH- at equilibrium. The product of [H+]
and [OH-] is always 10-14 M
o pH measures – what is the concentration of H+?
o pH = -log[H+]
 pH = partial hydrogen, p generally represents “negative logarithm of”

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Notetaker: Eva van Dijk Class: 91161 Cell Biology and Genetics Date: 16/08/17

o The pH scale only talks about aqueous solutions (where water is the solvent). This is
because water is used as the middle/reference point.
o You can also work out the pOH using pOH = -log[OH-]
 Adding acids and bases will modify the concentrations of H + and OH-.
 If 2 solutions differ by 1 pH unit, one contains 10X more H + ions than the other.
 Question: A strong acid that completely dissociates in aqueous solution has a concentration
of 0.1M, what is its pH?
o pH = 1. The underlined portion is the conditions necessary for you to use the -
log[H+] formula. Whatever the molarity of the compound is will equal the
concentration of H+ ions because there is 100% dissociation.
 Question: A strong base that completely dissociates in aqueous solution has a concentration
of 0.1M, what is its pH?
o pH = 13. It is pOH – 14.
 Acidic solutions – pH<7
 Basic solutions – pH>7
 Neutral solutions – pH = 7
 Strong acids and bases completely dissociate in water. However, biological systems contain
mostly weak acids and bases.
 Adding even a little strong base or strong acid to your bodily fluid would raise the pH
dramatically and this is bad for you. How do we stop this? This is where buffers come in.

Buffers
 Buffers are substances that resist changes in pH when a small amount of strong acid or base
is added.
 Most buffers are weak acids mixed with their conjugate bases.
 Example of conjugate acid-base pair:

CH3COOH <-> H+ + CH3COO-

General Formula: HA <-> H+ + A-
 When more H+ or OH- is added, the buffer equilibrium will shift to compensate.
 Picture – where will the ions go in a solution? If I was a H + ion, which side would I pick?
 Buffers do have limitation – they cannot neutralise infinite acid or base. They create a
buffering region where pH change is slow but they have a limited capacity.

Buffers in the Blood

 Buffer in the blood is carbonic acid H2CO3.
 H2O + CO2 <-> H2CO3 <-> HCO3- + H+

Questions
True or false – it is the adhesion of water molecules to each other that allows surface tension? False

How does water cool the air when weather is hot? Evaporative cooling and high specific heat so it
absorbs environmental heat.

A red solution has a pH of 6.8. and a blue solution has pH 9.8, how many times higher is H +
concentration does the red solution have? 10 3 because the pH scale is in logarithmic values.

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