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Water Properties Lab Report

Water is a polar molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Its polar structure allows water molecules to form hydrogen bonds that give water unique properties. Hydrogen bonds cause water to have high heat capacity and heat of vaporization as it takes a lot of energy to break these bonds. Hydrogen bonds also give water high surface tension and allow it to serve as a universal solvent and climb capillary tubes through adhesion and cohesion. The lab aims to test water's high heat capacity, surface tension, ability to dissolve many substances, and capillary action.

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1K views2 pages

Water Properties Lab Report

Water is a polar molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Its polar structure allows water molecules to form hydrogen bonds that give water unique properties. Hydrogen bonds cause water to have high heat capacity and heat of vaporization as it takes a lot of energy to break these bonds. Hydrogen bonds also give water high surface tension and allow it to serve as a universal solvent and climb capillary tubes through adhesion and cohesion. The lab aims to test water's high heat capacity, surface tension, ability to dissolve many substances, and capillary action.

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Water Properties

Introduction
Water is a compound made up of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom. Like other
substances, it has its own properties. These properties are what make water unique and very
important to living creatures.
Water molecules are “​polar molecules” [Paragraph 2]. This is because of the polar
covalent bond that bonds the hydrogen and oxygen atoms together. Having a polar covalent
bond means that the shared electron spend more time on one atom than another, in this case,
the electrons spend more time on oxygen. This gives oxygen atom a slight negative charge and
gives hydrogen atoms a slight positive charge. [Notebook]
Being polar molecules gave water its ​cohesion and
adhesion ​properties. [Notebook] Cohesion is when water molecules
stick together because of hydrogen bond (explained in the next
paragraph). Adhesion is when water get attracted to any polar
surfaces because of the molecules polarity. [Paragraph 11] This can
create ​capillary action​, when water climbs up a small tube against
the gravity due to adhesion and cohesion. [Paragraph 12] This is
because of the water molecules that get attracted to polar surfaces
above due to adhesion, and cohesion pulled the other water molecules up together.
Since the water molecules have both positive and negative charges, the positively
charged atom (hydrogen) of one molecule are attracted to the negatively charged atom
(oxygen) of another water molecule because positive charges attract to negative charges. This
is called “​hydrogen bond​,” an attractive force that keeps water molecules very tightly together.
[Notebook]
Hydrogen bond causes water to have ​high heat capacity ​or have a high specific heat
index. It means that it takes a lot of heat for water to raise 1 degree celsius because for any
substance to heat up, its molecules need to shake very fast. Hydrogen bond keeps the atoms
very tightly together so there is not many space to shake, thus making it harder to raise
temperature. [Notebook]
Hydrogen bond also causes water to have ​high heat of vaporization​. It means that it
also take a lot of heat to turn 1 gram of liquid water into gas water. This is because in order for
any substance to turn from liquid to gas, the attraction force between the molecules must be
broken. Since hydrogen bond is keeping the molecules tightly together, it takes more heat to
break the hydrogen bond, thus increase the amount of heat needed to turn liquid water into gas
water. [Notebook]
Not only that hydrogen bond keeps the water molecules together, they also give water
surface tension​. This is because the hydrogen bond at the surface of water is stronger than
other part of water because it doesn’t have to bond to the water molecules above it so it can be
attracted to water molecules beside or under it. [Notebook]

1
Water is a “​universal solvent​” [Paragraph 5] because it can dissolve far more
substances than any other liquids. This is also because the water molecules being polar
molecules. Water can dissolve any polar substances as the polarity of water molecule will easily
break down the polar molecules of other substance, thus dissolving in water. [Notebook]
One of the most unique property of water is that its ​density changes depending on its
temperature​. [Paragraph 8] Warm water has higher density than cold water. Water in its liquid
form is also denser than in its solid form, which is usually the other way around for most
substances. This is because when water freezes, the hydrogen bond expands. This causes the
water molecules to be separated and have less density than liquid water which its molecules are
kept together very tightly because of hydrogen bond.

The purpose of this lab was to investigate the properties of water. We will be testing
some of the properties listed above to see if they actually apply in real life. The properties of
water that we will be testing in this lab are water’s high heat capacity, surface tension, being a
universal solvent, and capillary action.

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