Hydrogen Bonds in Water


I think this isn’t a secret to anyone, but water is essential to life as we know it. When you think of your cells, they have chemical processes that include water, and happen in water. Now it’s a little strange. What gives water all these unique properties?

Water, as you probably already know, is made of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom. That’s why we call it H2O. The bonds between the atoms are called covalent bonds. The good thing about water is that oxygen is extremely electronegative. If you don’t know, electronegative means that the element likes to keep electrons for itself. To be precise, it hogs electrons. Because the electrons keep going around the oxygen, the hydrogen atoms have a positive charge.

When you put two water molecules together, they are kind of nice. Oxygen has a positive charge and hydrogen has a negative charge. When you put them together, they will stick. That will form a hydrogen bond. Hydrogen bonds are the reason why water has this fluid, nice, nature.

In future blogs I will explain about the pH of water, adhesion, cohesion, surface tension, evaporation of water, etc, etc. There will be lots to learn from the properties of water! It's gonna be FUN! :) 

Thank you! - Nat

Picture credits : physicsofmatter.com

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