Water Clusters: Towards an Understanding Based on First Principles of Their Static and Dynamic Properties
✍ Scribed by Jesus M. Ugalde; Ibon Alkorta; José Elguero
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 137 KB
- Volume
- 39
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0044-8249
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
If a single molecule were to be selected as the most important chemical entity for life, most people would agree that this is water. Moreover, water has been used to find a common definition for the Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin scales through its melting, boiling, and triple points. It is clear that these points are bulk properties and that a single H 2 O molecule has neither a melting nor a boiling point. Therefore, water offers a paradigmatic case for studying the transition from quantum reality to classical physics: How many water molecules are necessary for the bulk properties to appear?
Water clusters, discrete or polymeric (ice), can be seen as one of the simplest models connecting molecular to supramolecular chemistry. Consider, for instance, one of the possible water hexamers, I, and cyclohexane (II), both undergoing boat ± chair equilibria (Scheme 1