Water has a number of important properties essential for life. Many of the properties below are due to the hydrogen bonds in water.

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Water

An essay on water by John Asdas (12gv)

Water molecules are charged, with the oxygen atom being slightly negative (d-) and the hydrogen atoms being slightly positive (d+). These opposite charges attract each other, forming hydrogen bonds. These are weak, long distance bonds that are very common and very important in biology.

Water has a number of important properties essential for life. Many of the properties below are due to the hydrogen bonds in water.

Solvent. Because it is charged, water is a very good solvent. Charged or polar molecules such as salts, sugars, amino acids dissolve readily in water and so are called hydrophilic ("water loving"). Uncharged or non-polar molecules such as lipids do not dissolve so well in water and are called hydrophobic ("water hating").

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Specific heat capacity. Water has a specific heat capacity of 4.2 J, which means that it takes 4.2 joules of energy to heat 1 g of water by 1°C. This is unusually high and it means that water does not change temperature very easily. This minimises fluctuations in temperature inside cells, and it also means that sea temperature is remarkably constant.

Latent heat of vaporisation. Water requires a lot of energy to change state from a liquid into a gas, and this is made use of as a cooling mechanism in animals (sweating and panting) and plants (transpiration). As ...

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