Question about fundamental chemistry of water answered

[Robb]

Question about fundamental chemistry of water answered

(snip)

The article, by Y-Z Yue of Aalborg University in Denmark, and C.Austen Angell of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University, is entitled "Clarifying the glass-transition behavior of water by comparison with hyperquenched inorganic glasses."

The authors argue that the currently accepted temperature at which water in the glassy state softens into a liquid ("glass transition"), is incorrect due to mistaking an "experimental artifact" for the glass transition itself. In fact, Yue and Angell argue that the amorphous solid form of water crystallizes before this softening ever happens.

(snip)

Now, Yue and Angell have shown, by examining a number of other hyperquenched inorganic glasses that have known glass transitions, that annealing the glasses causes a "shadow" of the glass transition to occur at lower temperatures than the actual transition occurs at.

"What people thought was the glass transition in water is actually just an annealing effect," said Angell. "The actual glass transition temperature cannot be seen in any experiment because, as many of us thought before, water crystallizes before the glass transition can occur."

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[DarkPhenyx]

1. and here I thought...

...they were going to tell us why it was wet. *pout*