Is there a way to destroy water? End the cycle. No turning into any other element, just gone.
In: Planetary Science
There are several levels of turning water to not water:
Electrolysis. Applying a current through water can split the hydrogen and oxygen apart getting you hydrogen and oxygen gases. They easily recombine back into water with energy input (like a spark) and definitely doesn’t go far enough to meet your “no other element” or “just gone” qualifier.
Fusion. Chuck it into any star and the temperature is plenty high enough to split the hydrogen and oxygen. All stars will fuse the hydrogen into heavier elements and big enough stars will even fuse the oxygen into heavier elements. I’d argue that the water itself is pretty “gone” (you aren’t getting water back) but it definitely involved turning into other elements.
Annihilation. Bring the water molecule into contact with antimatter particles and they’ll annihilate, creating energy. It hasn’t changed into any other element, and it’s super gone. That said, this is a huge simplification because other particles can be produced in the process depending on the initial particles and their energies. When it comes to particle physics and energetic collisions/reactions there’s almost always a chance of particles (subatomic). Many are very short-lived rapidly decaying to other particles or a variety of forms of radiation (or some combination of both).
Matter-antimatter annihilation is probably the only one that goes far enough to qualify for destroy and no turning into any other element. Even then it isn’t “just gone”. It has some byproducts or energetic effects on the surrounding environment.
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