What is Water?
Despite its constant presence and uses in our lives, the nature of water is far more complex than it may at first seem.
Water can be defined by the simple chemical formula, H2 O.
Understanding how water, apparently so simple at the level of a single molecule, gives rise to such complex behaviour on the everyday scale is an enduring challenge. An IAS workshop on Water at Interfaces, bringing together scientists from across the UK and Europe, focused on how water at a molecular level behaves when it is near the surface of another substance. Why does water at metal surfaces adopt structures that are never seen in bulk water? Why are some ions attracted to the surface of water while others are repelled? How important are the dynamics of water in controlling the behaviour of biomolecules such as proteins and lipids? This workshop was designed to build a network of researchers in Europe working on water at interfaces, including groups in the Chemistry Department at Durham.
The behaviour of water at interfaces is important in a whole range of situations from the formation of rain drops to reactions in batteries to the misfolding of proteins in degenerative diseases.
At the other end of the spectrum to the molecular, work going on elsewhere at the IAS considered water at a macroscopic level. Ezio Todini used his three-month Fellowship to develop algorithms that will be used in computer simulations to help scientists advance their ability to predict how flood water will behave. During the course of this research, Todini forged a partnership with Durham’s Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience, a leading centre for the study of disasters and adaptations to emerging hazards and risks.
Computers, laboratories, or flood situations are, however, not the usual way in which we encounter water in our lives. As philosopher and Fellow Robin Hendry explored in a paper for the IAS Insightsjournal, whilst in a chemical sense water can be described as a molecule comprised of hydrogen and oxygen, this does not accurately depict the way we understand it at a human level. For example, polluted water is still water in a chemical sense, but has no value as a resource. The difference between water as an ordinary chemical substance and water as a complex building block of human biological and cultural existence underpinned much of the research done during this Water year.
Presentations from Water at Interfaces can be viewed at:
www.durham.ac.uk/ias/events/thematic/wateratinterfaces
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