STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF WATER (P.S.

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The formation of hydrogen bonds among water molecules causes water to possess unique
properties. These different properties are significant for life on earth. The following are unique
properties of water because of the hydrogen bond.

I. It has high boiling point and exists as liquid at room temperature.

Water has a high boiling point because its molecules are bound together by hydrogen
bonding, which is a very strong intermolecular force. It takes more kinetic energy, or a higher
temperature, to break the hydrogen bonding between water molecules, thus allowing them to
escape as steam.

Boiling of a liquid involves increasing the kinetic energy of the molecules by increasing the
temperature of the liquid. As the molecules gain more kinetic energy, they are able to escape
the intermolecular forces that hold them together as a liquid and become gaseous molecules.
The amount of kinetic energy required to break the intermolecular forces increases with the
strength of the intermolecular force involved. Stronger intermolecular forces require more
energy to disrupt, thus resulting in a higher boiling point for that substance.

Water molecules are held together by hydrogen bonding, which is a very strong intermolecular
force. Each water molecule is polar because the oxygen has a partial negative charge, while
the hydrogen atoms have a partial positive charge. The partial negative charge of one water
molecule exerts a strong attractive force over the partial positive charge of a different water
molecule. To boil water, the molecules must be supplied with a sufficient amount of kinetic
energy to escape the strong hydrogen bonding between molecules. The temperature must be
increased to increase the kinetic energy of the molecules. The presence of the hydrogen bonds
thus elevates the boiling point of water.

Processing Questions: (Please answer these questions in your activity notebook)

1. How does water molecules disrupt/break the hydrogen bond?

2. How does kinetic energy of molecules increase?

II. It has high specific heat which requires large amounts of heat before it vaporizes. This
explains why the earth has minimal temperature variations that can affect the climate.

Water has a high heat capacity because a lot of heat energy is required to break the hydrogen
bonds found in a molecule of water. Because the majority of heat energy is concentrated on
breaking the hydrogen bonds, the water molecule itself heats up after the bonds are broken.
Once the hydrogen bonds in a water molecule are heated up enough to break, the additional
heat energy can then be imparted to the water molecule itself. This additional heat energy then
vibrates the water molecule, allowing it to bump into nearby water molecules to distribute the
heat energy imparted by a heat source. However, the process of heat energy distribution is
slow, as the vibrating water molecule must impart sufficient heat energy to break the hydrogen
bonds in the surrounding water molecules. Once the heat source is removed from the water it
cools down, but very slowly.

Just as significant energy is required to break the hydrogen bonds in a water molecule,
significant energy is likewise required to re-form them. Only when the water molecule achieves
a low enough temperature to allow the hydrogen bonds to re-form does the water molecule
release the heat energy. This process of warming and cooling explains why water slowly heats
up and cools down.

Processing Questions:

1. How does heat energy is distributed in the water molecules?

2. How does the bond between the water molecules can be renewed?

III. It is the only substance that contracts when cooled because of its more open structure
in the solid form. The density of ice is less than liquid water, hence, it floats on water.

When a liquid is cooled, more and more molecules are brought closer together and need to
be accommodated in a smaller area. This gives most solids more density than their liquid form.
However, in the case of water, the negatively charged oxygen atoms repel each other (when
brought together in a smaller space) to prevent the ice from becoming any denser. This is the
reason that density decreases as temperature continues to fall below 4 degrees Celsius.

Processing Questions:

1. What happens to the water molecules when it is cooled?

2. Why does ice float in water?

IV. It has high heat of vaporization. This causes a large drop in temperature during
evaporation.

Due to hydrogen bonding, water molecules cling to each other (cohesion) and remain in liquid
state under temperatures that are favorable to plants and other living organisms. Liquid water
has a boiling temperature of 100°C and freezes at 0°C at 1 atmospheric pressure. When it boils,
the hydrogen bonds are broken, and the molecules separate from each other. But without
these hydrogen bonds, water will boil at temperature of -80°C and freeze at -100°C (Mader
1993).

The hydrogen-bonding property of water is therefore vital to life, particularly to plants which
generally survive within a temperature range from 0 to 50°C. Otherwise, plants will be deprived
of liquid water because the water inside will change to gas even at low temperatures. In the
process of changing 1 gram of liquid water at 0°C to solid form or ice at 0°C, 80 calories of heat
energy is lost. This is the latent heat of fusion of water. The heat that is given off when water
freezes keep the atmospheric temperature higher. Likewise, 1 gram of ice at 0°C uses 80
calories of heat energy to convert to 1 gram of liquid water at 0°C. This is water’s latent heat of
melting. But a very high quantity of heat energy is needed for evaporation. This amount of heat
is called heat of vaporization. When molecules of water absorb heat energy, they move fast in
water.

Eventually, the speed of movement of some molecules becomes so fast allowing them to
overcome the intermolecular attraction, detach from the multimolecular water, form bubbles,
and leave the water surface in gas state. Water has latent heat of vaporization of 540 calories
per gram, the amount of heat energy that is necessary to convert 1 g of liquid water at 100°C
to steam at 100°C, or 40.71 kJ/mol or about 2,260 kJ/kg water.

The heat energy is used in breaking the hydrogen bonds which hold the molecules of liquid
water together. This property of water helps to cool down the body of living organisms. This is
called evaporative cooling. In humans, body heat is used to vaporize sweat; in plants, heat is
likewise used in converting liquid water to water vapor which then escapes into the
atmosphere. This natural process of vaporizing plant water is called transpiration (it is the
evaporation of water from plants).

Processing Question:

1. How does the body of the living organisms like human and plants cool down?

V. It has a high surface tension. This allows water to move from the roots to the top of a very
tall tree. Water molecules want to cling to each other. At the surface, however, there are fewer
water molecules to cling to since there is air above (thus, no water molecules). This results in a
stronger bond between those molecules that do come in contact with one another, and a layer
of strongly bonded water (see diagram). This surface layer (held together by surface tension)
creates a considerable barrier between the atmosphere and the water. In fact, other than
mercury, water has the greatest surface tension of any liquid.

Surface tension in water owes to the fact that water molecules attract one another, as each
molecule forms a bond with the ones in its vicinity. At the surface, though, the outmost layer of
molecules, has fewer molecules to cling to, therefore compensates by establishing stronger
bonds with its neighbors, this leading to the formation of the surface tension.
Within a body of a liquid, a molecule will not experience a net force because the forces by the
neighboring molecules all cancel out (diagram). However, for a molecule on the surface of the
liquid, there will be a net inward force since there will be no attractive force acting from above.
This inward net force causes the molecules on the surface to contract and to resist being
stretched or broken. Thus, the surface is under tension, which is probably where the name
"surface tension" came from.

Due to the surface tension, small objects will "float" on the surface of a fluid, as long as the
object cannot break through and separate the top layer of water molecules. When an object is
on the surface of the fluid, the surface under tension will behave like an elastic membrane.

Processing Questions:

1. How does the barrier from the atmosphere and water formed?
2. Why does small object floats above the surface of the fluid?