Water

Water (from the Old English word wter; c.f German "Wasser", Danish "Vand", Russian [voda]) is a tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless (it has a slight hint of blue) substance in its pure form that is essential to all known forms of life and is known also as the most universal solvent. Water is an abundant substance on Earth. It exists in many places and forms: mostly in the oceans and polar ice caps, but also as clouds, rain water, rivers, freshwater aquifers, and sea ice. On the planet, water is continuously moving through the cycle involving evaporation, precipitation, and runoff to the sea. Water that humans consume is called potable water. This natural resource is becoming more scarce in certain places as human population in those places increases, and its availability is a major social and economic concern.

Changing appearances

Drinking water For more details on this topic, see Category:Forms of water. Water takes many different shapes on earth: water vapor and clouds in the sky, waves and icebergs in the sea, glaciers in the mountain, aquifers in the ground, to name but a few. Through evaporation, precipitation, and runoff, water is continuously flowing from one form to another, in what is called the water cycle. Because of the importance of precipitation to agriculture, and to mankind in general, we give different names to its various forms: while rain is common in most countries, other phenomena are quite surprising when seen for the first time: hail, snow, fog or dew for example. When appropriately lit, water drops in the air can refract sunlight to produce rainbows. Similarly, water runoffs have played major roles in human history: rivers and irrigation brought the water needed for agriculture. Rivers and the seas offered

opportunity for travel and commerce. Through erosion, runoffs played a major part in shaping our environment providing river valleys and deltas which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centers. Water also infiltrates the ground and goes into aquifers. This groundwater later flows back to the surface in springs, or more spectacularly in hot springs and geysers. Groundwater is also extracted artificially in wells. Because water can contain many different substances, it can taste or smell very differently. In fact, humans and other animals have developed their senses to be able to evaluate the drinkability of water: animals generally dislike the taste of salty sea water and the putrid swamps and favor the purer water of a mountain spring or aquifer.

Important properties for living organisms

Water has many unusual properties that are critical for life: it is a good solvent and has high surface tension. Fresh water has its greatest density at 4C. It becomes less dense as it freezes or heats up. As a stable, polar molecule prevalent in the atmosphere, it plays an important atmospheric role as an absorber of infrared radiation, crucial in the atmospheric greenhouse effect (which, contrary to one popular belief, is actually essential to life; with no greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature would be 18 Celsius). Water also has an unusually high specific heat, which plays many roles in regulating global (and regional; see for example the Gulf Stream) climate. Water is a very good solvent, chemically not unlike ammonia, and dissolves many types of substances, such as various salts and sugar, and facilitates their chemical interaction, which aids complex metabolisms. Some substances, however, do not mix well with water, including oils and other hydrophobic substances. Cell membranes, composed of lipids and proteins, take advantage of this property to carefully control interactions between their contents and external chemicals. This is facilitated somewhat by the surface tension of water. Water drops are stable due to the high surface tension of water. This can be seen when small quantities of water are put onto a nonsoluble surface such as glass: the water stays together as drops. This property plays a key role in plant transpiration. A simple but environmentally important and unique property of water is that its common solid form, ice, floats on the liquid. This solid phase is less dense than liquid water, due to the geometry of the strong hydrogen bonds which are formed only at lower temperatures. For almost all other substances and for all other 11 uncommon phases of water ice except ice-XI, the solid form is more dense than the liquid form. Fresh water is most dense at 4C, and will sink by convection as it cools to that temperature, and if it becomes colder it will rise instead. This reversal will cause deep water to remain warmer than shallower freezing water, so that ice in a body of water will form first at the surface and progress downward, while the majority of the water underneath will hold a constant 4C. This effectively insulates a lake floor from the cold.

While this behavior may seem obvious, even intuitive, it should be noted that almost all other chemicals are denser as solids than they are as liquids, and freeze from the bottom up. Life on earth has evolved with and fine tuned itself to the important features of water. The existence of abundant liquid, vapor and solid forms of water on Earth has no doubt been an important factor in the abundant colonization of Earth's various environments by life-forms adapted to those varying and often extreme conditions. In fact, civilizations have historically flourished around rivers and major waterways; Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization, is situated between two major rivers. Large metropolises like London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. Islands with safe water ports, like Singapore and Hong Kong, have flourished for precisely this reason. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is scarcer, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.

Importance of astronomical position

Impact of a water droplet. The coexistence of the solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of water on Earth is vital to the origin, evolution, and continued existence of life on Earth as we know it. However, if the Earth's location in the solar system were even marginally closer or further from the Sun, the conditions which allow the three forms to be present simultaneously would be far less likely to exist. Earth's mass allows gravity to hold an atmosphere. Water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provides a greenhouse effect which helps maintain a relatively steady surface temperature. If Earth were less massive, a thinner atmosphere would cause temperature extremes preventing the accumulation of water except in polar ice caps (as on Mars). According to the solar nebula model of the solar system's formation, Earth's mass may be largely due to its distance from the Sun. The distance between Earth and the Sun and the combination of solar radiation received and the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere ensures that its surface is neither too cold nor too hot for liquid water. If Earth were more distant, most water would be frozen. If Earth were nearer to the Sun, its higher surface temperature would limit the formation of ice caps, or cause water to exist only as vapor. In the former case, the

low albedo of oceans would cause Earth to absorb more solar energy. In the second case, a runaway greenhouse effect and inhospitable conditions similar to Venus would result. It has been proposed that life itself may maintain the conditions that have allowed its continued existence. The surface temperature of Earth has been relatively constant through geologic time despite varying solar flux, indicating that a dynamic process governs Earth's temperature via a combination of greenhouse gases and surface or atmospheric albedo. See Gaia hypothesis.

Water in everyday life

Water pressure in a sprinkler All known forms of life depend on water. Water is a vital part of many metabolic processes within the body. Significant quantities of water are used during the digestion of food. (Note however that some bacteria and plant seeds can enter a cryptobiotic state for an indefinite period when dehydrated, and come back to life when returned to a wet environment) About 72% of the fat free mass of the human body is made of water. To function properly the body requires between one and seven litres of water per day to avoid dehydration, the precise amount depending on the level of activity, temperature, humidity, and other factors. It is not clear how much water intake is needed by healthy people. However, for those who do not have kidney problems, it is rather difficult to drink too much water, but (especially in warm humid weather and while exercising) dangerous to drink too little. People do often drink far more water than necessary while exercising, however, putting them at risk of water intoxication, which is frequently fatal. The "fact" that a person should consume eight glasses of water per day cannot be traced back to a scientific source. However, leading dieticians and nutritionists will tell you that this is the RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) of water. [1]. The latest dietary reference intake report by the National Research Council recommended 2.7 liters of water total (including food sources) for women and 3.7 liters for men[2]. Water is lost from the body in urine and feces, through sweating, and by exhalation of water vapor in the breath. Humans require water that does not contain too much salt or other impurities. Common impurities include chemicals and/or harmful bacteria, such as crypto sporidium. Some solutes are acceptable and even desirable for perceived taste enhancement and to provide needed electrolytes.

PH (Potenz Hydrogen)
Acids and bases: Acid-base reaction theories pH Self-ionization of water Buffer solutions Systematic naming Redox reactions Electrochemistry Acids:

Strong acids Weak acids

Bases:

Strong bases Weak bases

pH is a measure of the activity of hydrogen ions (H+) in a solution and, therefore, its acidity or alkalinity. In aqueous systems, the hydrogen ion activity is dictated by the dissociation constant of water (Kw) = 1.011 1014 at 25 C) and interactions with other ions in solution. Due to this dissociation constant a neutral solution (hydrogen ion activity equals hydroxide ion activity) has a pH of approximately 7. Aqueous solutions with pH values lower than 7 are considered acidic, while pH values higher than 7 are considered alkaline. The concept was introduced by S.P.L. Srensen in 1909. The p stands for the German Potenz, meaning power or potency, and the H for the hydrogen ion (H+). Sometimes it is referred as Latin pondus hydrogenii.

Definition
Though a pH value has no unit, it is not an arbitrary scale; the number arises from a definition based on the activity of hydrogen ions in the solution. The formula for calculating pH is:

[H+] denotes the activity of H+ ions (or more accurately written, [H3O+], the equivalent hydronium ions), measured in moles per litre (also known as molarity). In dilute solutions (like river or tap water) the activity is approximately equal to the concentration of the H+ ion. Log10 denotes the base-10 logarithm, and pH therefore defines a logarithmic scale of acidity. For example, a solution with pH=8.2 will have an [H+] activity (concentration) of 108.2 mol/L, or about 6.31 109 mol/L; a solution with an [H+] activity of 4.5 104 mol/L will have a pH value of log10(4.5 104), or about 3.35. In aqueous solution at standard temperature and pressure (STP), a pH of 7 indicates neutrality (i.e. pure water) because water naturally dissociates into H+ and OH ions with equal concentrations of 1107 mol/L. A lower pH value (for example pH 3) indicates increasing strength of acidity, and a higher pH value (for example pH 11) indicates increasing strength of alkalinity. Neutral pH is not exactly 7; this would imply that the H+ ion concentration is exactly 1107 mol/L, which is not the case. The value is close enough, however, for neutral pH to be 7.00 to three significant figures, which is near enough for most people to assume it is exactly 7. In nonaqueous solutions or non-STP conditions, the pH of neutrality may not even be close to 7. Instead it is related to the dissociation constant for the specific solvent used. (Note also that pure water, when exposed to the atmosphere, will take in carbon dioxide, some of which reacts with water to form carbonic acid and H+, thereby lowering the pH to about 5.7.) Most substances have a pH in the range 0 to 14, although extremely acidic or basic substances may have pH < 0, or pH > 14.

Measuring
pH can be measured:

by addition of a pH indicator into the studying solution. The indicator color varies depending on the pH of the solution. Using indicators, qualitative determinations can be made with universal indicators that have broad color variablity over a wide pH range and quantitative determinations can be made using indicators that have strong color variablitiy over a small pH range. Extremely precise measurements can be made over a wide pH range using indicators that have multiple equilibriums (ie H2I) in conjunction with spectrophotometric methods to determine the relative abundance of each ph dependant component that make up the color of solution. by using a pH meter together with pH-selective electrodes (pH glass electrode, hydrogen electrode, quinhydrone electrode and other).

pOH
There is also pOH, in a sense the opposite of pH, which measures the concentration of OH ions. Since water self ionizes, and notating [OH-] as the concentration of hydroxide ions, we have (*) where Kw is the ionization constant of water. Now, since

by logarithmic identities, we then have the relationship (*) and thus (*) (*) Valid exactly for temperature = 298.15 K (25 C) only, acceptable for most lab calculations.

Calculation of pH for weak and strong acids

Values of pH for weak and strong acids can be approximated using certain assumptions. Under the Brnsted-Lowry theory, stronger or weaker acids are a relative concept. But here we define a strong acid as a species which is a much stronger acid than the hydronium (H3O+) ion. In that case the dissociation reaction (strictly HX+H2OH3O+ +X but simplified as HXH++X) goes to completion, i.e. no unreacted acid remains in solution. Dissolving the strong acid HCl in water can therefore be expressed: HCl(aq) H+ + Cl This means that in a 0.01 mol/L solution of HCl it is approximated that there is a concentration of 0.01 mol/L dissolved hydrogen ions. From above, the pH is: pH = log10 [H+]: pH = log (0.01) which equals 2. For weak acids, the dissociation reaction does not go to completion. An equilibrium is reached between the hydrogen ions and the conjugate base. The following shows the equilibrium reaction between methanoic acid and its ions: HCOOH(aq) H+ + HCOO It is necessary to know the value of the equilibrium constant of the reaction for each acid in order to calculate its pH. In the context of pH, this is termed the acidity constant of the acid but is worked out in the same way (see chemical equilibrium): Ka = [hydrogen ions][acid ions] / [acid] For HCOOH, Ka = 1.6 104 (some other Ka values) When calculating the pH of a weak acid, it is usually assumed that the water does not provide any hydrogen ions. This simplifies the calculation, and the concentration provided by water, 1107 mol, is usually insignificant. With a 0.1 mol/L solution of methanoic acid (HCOOH), the acidity constant is equal to: Ka = [H+][HCOO] / [HCOOH] Given that an unknown amount of the acid has dissociated, [HCOOH] will be reduced by this amount, while [H+] and [HCOO] will each be increased by this amount. Therefore, [HCOOH] may be replaced by 0.1 x, and [H+] and [HCOO] may each be replaced by x, giving us the following equation:

Solving this for x yields 3.9103, which is the concentration of hydrogen ions after dissociation. Therefore the pH is log(3.9103), or about 2.4. More on pH calculation...

Indicators
An indicator is used to measure the pH of a substance. Common indicators are litmus paper, phenolphthalein, methyl orange, and bromothymol blue

The Hydrangea macrophylla blossoms in pink or blue, depending on soil pH. In acid soils the flowers will be blue, in alkaline soils the flowers will be pink [1]