43406918 Water has found an unknown quantum mechanical properties
At nanometer distances in the water there properties that can not be explained otherwise than as involving quantum mechanics. This conclusion was made by scientists to a series of experiments. Article researchers have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journal, but its preprint available at arXiv.org. Brief paper writes portal Physics World. Water has several properties that make this unique fluid. In particular, H2O has a maximum density at a temperature of four degrees Celsius. Due to this feature is not earth ponds freeze from the bottom up and top down, and in them during the cold season can live creatures. Many of the unusual characteristics of water due to the fact that its molecules are linked together a special type of non-covalent bonds, called hydrogen bonds. Such bonds are formed between a hydrogen atom, which is associated with so-called electronegative atom (in the case of water – with oxygen), and other electronegative atoms in the same or a neighboring molecule. Authors of new work examined how well the model describing the properties of water are only based on hydrogen bonds (so-called electrostatic model), consistent with experimental data. Scientists have tracked a parameter called the distribution of protons in water molecules over the levels of kinetic energy. Researchers 'driven' the H2O molecule into carbon nanotubes with a diameter 1.6 nm, and subjected to a system of high-energy neutrons, which produced a source ISIS of the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, UK. Due to the fact that neutrons have very high energy, they had time to reflect on encountered on the path of the protons before the last time to interact with the surrounding particles. Thus, analyzing the data on the scattering of neutrons after passing through the sample, the researchers obtained information on the native distribution of the proton energy. It turned out that energy is strongly temperature dependent: the average value was 50 per cent increase predicted by the electrostatic model at low temperatures, and 20 per cent – at room temperature. Inside the nanotubes with a diameter of 1.4 nm average energy of protons was 30 percent lower than that of water, not placed in a confined space. The researchers also examined, as will be distributed in energy protons in water, placed in a special membrane material Nafion, which is used for the production of fuel cells. Scientists have shown that the average energy was 30 percent higher than the water in the "normal" state. The authors of the new work suggest that, when the molecules water are very close to each other and "crushed" because of the small amount of available space, the protons in them moving in until The physics of the quantum state. Scientists note that the quantum-mechanical properties of water can determine its "behavior" in living cells, since there is distance between the molecules is roughly equivalent to the distance at which they were in the experiment.
