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High specific heat: The specific heat of a substance is a measure of the amount of heat energy that must be added to that substance to raise its temperature. Water has a high specific heat, which means that a large amount of energy must be added to cause a small change in its temperature. Because water covers more than 70% of Earths surface, its high specific heat plays a critical role in regulating climate on our planet. If waters specific heat were lower, oceans and lakes would be much warmer during the day and cooler at night. This would have a similar effect on air temperatures around the planet. Low density in the solid state: Ice is less dense than liquid water. You observe this every time you see ice floating in water. This property has important implications for aquatic environments where the climate is cold enough to cause freezing in winter. Because ice floats, lakes and ponds freeze from the top down, and plants and animals can survive the winter by living in the liquid water underneath the ice.
Although the surface of a lake freezes solid in winter, the water underneath remains in the liquid state, allowing many organisms to survive despite freezing temperatures.
Solvent properties: Water is known as the universal solvent because so many compounds are water solublethat is, they dissolve in water. (A solvent is a substance in which another substance, called a solute, dissolves.) Cells depend on this property for the thousands of metabolic reactions taking place inside their cell membranes. Water makes up 60% of the mass of an adult human. Much of this water is located in the cytoplasm of the bodys cells where it provides a solvent in which the chemical reactions of metabolism can occur.
Hydrogen bonds are strong enough to result in the properties described earlier: cohesion, high surface tension, high boiling point and freezing point, and high specific heat. In each case, the property results from strong attractive forces that tend to hold water molecules together. Hydrogen bonding accounts for intermolecular attractions in water: attractions that occur between water molecules. Other types of attractions that occur between water molecules and other kinds of molecules can also be explained by waters polar nature. Recall that we described water as a good solvent. Water is a good solvent because of the attractive forces between water molecules and the solute particles. For Hydrogen bonds form between two example, table salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl), is an water molecules. ionic compound consisting of positively charged + sodium ions (Na ) and negatively charged chloride ions (Cl). When you dissolve table salt in water, the solid compound breaks apart. Each individual ion becomes associated with many water molecules through strong attractive forces. The diagram below shows how a sodium ion with a +1 charge associates with polar water molecules in one orientation, and a chloride ion with a 1 charge associates with polar water molecules in the opposite orientation.
When sodium chloride (NaCl) is placed in water, the water molecules break apart the individual ions. Each positively charged sodium ion (Na+) is surrounded by the negatively charged ends of water molecules. Each negatively charged chloride ion (Cl) is surrounded by the positively charged ends of water molecules.
In addition, compounds that contain ions of elements in the 1A group of the periodic table are water soluble. (These elements, the alkali metals, include lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, cesium, and francium.)
2. Use the water solubility behavior summarized in the list above to predict which of the following solids will dissolve when placed in water. Explain your answers in the space below. KOH Fe2S3 PbBr2 Na2Cr2O7 MgCl2 Ca(NO3)2 NH4Br KCN Li3PO4