Does the State of the Art Knowledge on Water Structure Require Thinking About a New Thermodynamic Framework for Aqueous Solutions?
In recent decades, old ideas of liquid water as a mixture of two distinct states, even at room temperature, resurged fueled by x-ray results that can be interpreted as fluctuating patches of high-density and low-density liquids. Isosbestic points in vibrational spectra indicate more strongly and more weakly hydrogen-bonded molecules, not necessarily patches. Despite mutual agreement among the fractions of the two states obtained from these experiments and with thermodynamic (two-state) and molecular models, chemical (example: water auto-dissociation) and interfacial (example: water surface tension) properties varying with temperature and salt content currently show opposite trends with the postulated fractions, which can therefore not be reconciled with a simple mixing model of the two states, whereas some physical properties (example: water static dielectric constant) can. Consequently, if the tale of two liquids were to be ultimately accepted and thermodynamic models for aqueous electrolyte solutions would need to be revised, then a simple mixing model would be insufficient with high probability.
Authors
- Johannes Lützenkirchen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0611-2746)
Institutions
- Kerntechnische Entsorgung Karlsruhe (Germany) (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Colloids and Interfaces
- Published
- 2026-08-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/colloids10040060
- Primary Topic
- Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00