Size, separation, structural order, and mass density of molecules packing in water and ice

• Main Authors: Sun, Changqing, Huang, Yongli, Zhang, Xi, Ma, Zengsheng, Li, Wen, Zhou, Yichun, Zhou, Ji, Zheng, Weitao
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Molecular electronics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/100963; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18403
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The structural symmetry and molecular separation in water and ice remain uncertain. We present herewith a solution to unifying the density, the structure order and symmetry, the size (H-O length dH), and the separation (dOO = dL + dH or the O:H length dL) of molecules packing in water and ice in terms of statistic mean. This solution reconciles: i) the dL and the dH symmetrization of the O:H-O bond in compressed ice, ii) the dOO relaxation of cooling water and ice and, iii) the dOO expansion of a dimer and between molecules at water surface. With any one of the dOO, the density ρ(g·cm−3), the dL, and the dH, as a known input, one can resolve the rest quantities using this solution that is probing conditions or methods independent. We clarified that: i) liquid water prefers statistically the mono-phase of tetrahedrally-coordinated structure with fluctuation, ii) the low-density phase (supersolid phase as it is strongly polarized with even lower density) exists only in regions consisting molecules with fewer than four neighbors and, iii) repulsion between electron pairs on adjacent oxygen atoms dictates the cooperative relaxation of the segmented O:H-O bond, which is responsible for the performance of water and ice.