Properties of Water
This property of water explains why a water droplet forms a sphere on a waxed car surface.
What is surface tension?
Water’s ability to dissolve many substances, making it known as the “universal solvent,” is due to this property.
What is polarity?
Water's ability to dissolve many substances is due to its polarity, making it known as this.
What is the universal solvent?
This property of water is responsible for the formation of a meniscus when water is in a narrow container.
What is cohesion?
In his studies of gases, Cavendish demonstrated that hydrogen, when mixed with oxygen, forms this common substance
What is H2O
Water has a high specific heat capacity, meaning it can absorb a lot of heat before its temperature changes. This property helps regulate temperature on Earth.
What is specific heat?
This helps water be highly effective in solubility. Hint like mixes with like.
What is hydrophilic?
Water expands when it freezes, forming a crystalline structure that makes ice less dense. This is due to the formation of these types of bonds.
What are hydrogen bonds?
This is when water and some other components separate and can see a clear divide. What happens when for us to see that divide?
What is hydrophobic?
This property of ice causes it to float on liquid water.
What is lower density than liquid water?
This property of water causes it to expand when it freezes, making ice less dense than liquid water
What is the expansion upon freezing?
The term for water molecules sticking to other substances, such as when water adheres to the sides of a glass, is known as this.
What is adhesion?
Water’s ability to form hydrogen bonds contributes to this characteristic that allows organisms to stay cool during evaporation, such as through sweating or transpiration in plants.
What is evaporative cooling?
Henry Cavendish’s precise measurements of gases led to a better understanding of how this property of water enables it to support life by acting as a solvent for various substances.
What is water’s solvent capability?
This type of heat capacity measures the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of a substance by one degree Celsius.
What is specific heat capacity?
The property of water that causes it to have a high boiling point compared to other small molecules is due to the presence of this kind of bond between molecules.
What is hydrogen bonding?
The process by which water moves from the roots of plants, through the plant, and evaporates from the leaves is known as this
What is transpiration?
Because of its high heat capacity, water can absorb a lot of heat energy before its temperature increases significantly. This makes it important for this type of regulation in the environment.
What is climate regulation?
The fact that ice floats is vital for life on Earth, as it helps this phenomenon occur, which allows aquatic organisms to survive in colder climates.
What is the prevention of lakes and oceans from freezing solid?
Name something that is hydrophobic?
What is: Oil, waxes, and steroids?
This 18th-century scientist is credited with discovering hydrogen and studying the properties of gases, including its behavior in water.
Who is Henry Cavendish?
Cavendish's experiments helped establish that water could absorb this gas, which would later be found to dissolve in water to form carbonic acid.
What is carbon dioxide?
This phenomenon, first studied in part by Cavendish, describes the ability of gases like hydrogen to dissolve in water, which is crucial for understanding the properties of natural waters and the role of gases in biological systems.
What is solubility?
Name an example of something that is hydrophilic.
What is: sugar (glucose), salt (sodium chloride), starch, cellulose, many amino acids, ethanol, methanol, cotton, wool, keratin, protein, silica, gypsum, polyethylene glycol ethers, and polyacrylic amide?
Cavendish contributed to the early understanding of how water and gases behave at different pressures, which is important for understanding this property of water that allows it to change states—solid, liquid, or gas—under varying temperature and pressure conditions
What is phase transition?