2.3D: Water’s States: Gas, Liquid, and Solid
The orientation of hydrogen bonds as water changes states dictates the properties of water in its gaseous, liquid, and solid forms.
- Explain the biological significance of ice’s ability to float on water
Key Points
- As water is boiled, kinetic energy causes the hydrogen bonds to break completely and allows water molecules to escape into the air as gas (steam or water vapor).
- When water freezes, water molecules form a crystalline structure maintained by hydrogen bonding.
- Solid water, or ice, is less dense than liquid water.
- Ice is less dense than water because the orientation of hydrogen bonds causes molecules to push farther apart, which lowers the density.
- For other liquids, solidification when the temperature drops includes the lowering of kinetic energy, which allows molecules to pack more tightly and makes the solid denser than its liquid form.
- Because ice is less dense than water, it is able to float at the surface of water.
Key Terms
- density : A measure of the amount of matter contained by a given volume.
The formation of hydrogen bonds is an important quality of liquid water that is crucial to life as we know it. As water molecules make hydrogen bonds with each other, water takes on some unique chemical characteristics compared to other liquids, and since living things have a high water content, understanding these chemical features is key to understanding life. In liquid water, hydrogen bonds are constantly formed and broken as the water molecules slide past each other. The breaking of these bonds is caused by the motion (kinetic energy) of the water molecules due to the heat contained in the system. When the heat is raised as water is boiled, the higher kinetic energy of the water molecules causes the hydrogen bonds to break completely and allows water molecules to escape into the air as gas (steam or water vapor). On the other hand, when the temperature of water is reduced and water freezes, the water molecules form a crystalline structure maintained by hydrogen bonding (there is not enough energy to break the hydrogen bonds). This makes ice less dense than liquid water, a phenomenon not seen in the solidification of other liquids.
Phases of matter : See what happens to intermolecular bonds during phase changes in this interactive.
Water’s lower density in its solid form is due to the way hydrogen bonds are oriented as it freezes: the water molecules are pushed farther apart compared to liquid water. With most other liquids, solidification when the temperature drops includes the lowering of kinetic energy between molecules, allowing them to pack even more tightly than in liquid form and giving the solid a greater density than the liquid.
The low density of ice, an anomaly, causes it to float at the surface of liquid water, such as an iceberg or the ice cubes in a glass of water. In lakes and ponds, ice forms on the surface of the water creating an insulating barrier that protects the animals and plant life in the pond from freezing. Without this layer of insulating ice, plants and animals living in the pond would freeze in the solid block of ice and could not survive. The detrimental effect of freezing on living organisms is caused by the expansion of ice relative to liquid water. The ice crystals that form upon freezing rupture the delicate membranes essential for the function of living cells, irreversibly damaging them. Cells can only survive freezing if the water in them is temporarily replaced by another liquid like glycerol.
Ice Density : Hydrogen bonding makes ice less dense than liquid water. The (a) lattice structure of ice makes it less dense than the freely flowing molecules of liquid water, enabling it to (b) float on water.