4 ms·
A watershed moment in understanding how H2O conducts electricity
- finolex2 9y agoFull paper can be found here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1131 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1131 As in most chemistry/physics papers, the true marvel is often not the actual phenomena being studied, but the observational techniques used to study those phenomena. In this case, it's by complexing the hydronium cluster with molecules that accept H-Bonds increasingly strongly, and then tracking the frequency of every O-D stretch vibration in the complex, as a hydron is incrementally pulled to a neighbouring water molecule.
- basicplus2 9y agoPure water is an excellent insulator