A radically new suggestion about the electrodynamics of water: Can the pH index and the Debye relaxation be of a common origin?
A radically new suggestion about the electrodynamics of water: Can the pH index and the Debye relaxation be of a common origin?
Volkov, A. A.; Artemov, V. G.; Pronin, A. V.
The structure of pure water is commonly viewed as an openwork matrix of hydrogen-bonded H2O molecules with a Debye relaxation dynamics. The matrix is filled with free ions of low concentration, which makes water a weak electrolyte with pH = 7. Traditionally, the Debye relaxation is considered having no relevance to the dc water conductivity (or the pH index): while the Debye relaxation is caused by the dynamics of intact H2O molecules, the dc conductivity, in contrast, is due to self-dissociation of H2O into H3O+ and OH- ions. Here, we consider a microscopic mechanism, which could unify the Debye and the dc dynamics, namely the Brownian-like motion of strongly interacting ions. The model comprehensively describes the low-energy electrodynamics of water (up to 1011Hz) giving however an unexpected outcome: water behaves as if it had far more free ions than the standard model assumes. High concentration of counter charges results in a polarization structure of water. We recognize full well that such a radical model is contrary to many years of research on the dynamics, thermodynamics, and dielectric properties of water; but the results seem logically consistent and may prove stimulating.
Involved research facilities
- High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD)
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EPL - Europhysics Letters 106(2014), 46004
DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/106/46004
ISSN: 1286-4854
Cited 32 times in Scopus
Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-20751