Is it the additional oxygen? Is it hydrogens ability to bond and make new compounds? Help my gears turn pls
In: Chemistry
I did not fully understand the question but if you are talking about consumption, then I believe the point is that water is less unhealthy compared to soft drinks or even tea/coffee as we like to put sugar/milk etc in it.
Water is an excellent solvent. To build complex molecules, that can lead to life, you need to make it easy to shift things around.
Kickass answer! Thanks much
So beneficial for what?
Water’s oxygen is very happy pulling two electrons from both hydrogens, who are themselves delighted to give them away. Water is a very stable molecule.
What do you mean it’s beneficial?
Water, with two hydrogens and one oxygen, is something that we call a polar solvent. The oxygen holds electrons much more tightly to itself than do the hydrogens, leaving each water molecule with electrically positive and negative zones.
The strong positive and negative electrical forces in liquid water allows a lot of solids to dissolve in water by splitting into positive and negative ions (eg. salt, it won’t dissolve in oil, but it will in water). In other words, water breaks down crystals and molecules into their components better than most other liquids.
These free ions (ie. fragmented bits of molecules suspended in the water) can then easily bump into other ions from other dissolved molecules and react to form new molecules in a way that would have been very hard if those ions were locked into their original solids.
Facilitating easier chemical reactions is very helpful to life and organic chemistry. All life uses water in this manner because it is the easiest way to facilitate use of chemical energy gradients to give life the energy to perpetuate itself and do more stuff.
It is theorised that highly polar liquids like water or ammonia might be essential for any form of life similar to ourselves.
Latest Answers