Researchers from the University of Cambridge have found that water behaves neither like a liquid nor a solid in a single molecule layer and that under extreme pressures, it becomes electrically conductive.
Water normally expands when it freezes, and it has a high boiling point. However, the new research demonstrates that when water is compressed to the nanoscale, its properties change dramatically.
Hexatic and Superionic phases
The water behaves in the hexatic phase as something in-between, neither a solid nor a liquid. At greater pressures, during the superionic phase, the water turns highly conductive, and protons are propelled swiftly through ice in a manner akin to the movement of electrons in a conductor.
"Our approach suggests that this phase can be seen experimentally by confining water in a graphene channel."
The findings not only point to a new way to discover superionic behavior in other materials but also to a new way to understand how water behaves at the nanoscale.
Scientists detected new phases of water acting like neither a liquid nor a solid
Reviewed by Rauf ahmed
on
September 18, 2022
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