Thursday 23 March 2017

Why is water sticky?


Water is highly cohesive—it is the highest of the non-metallic liquids. Water is sticky and clumps together into drops because of its cohesive properties, but chemistry and electricity are involved at a more detailed level to make this possible. More precisely, the positive and negative charges of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make up water molecules makes them attracted to each other. If you've played with bar magnets you will know that the positive (+) side of one magnet will repel the other positive side, while a negative (-) side of one magnet will attract the positive side of the other magnet. Positive charges attract negative charges.
In a water molecule, the two hydrogen atoms align themselves along one side of the oxygen atom, with the result being that the oxygen side has a slight negative charge and the side with the hydrogen atoms has a slight positive charge. Thus when the positive side on one water molecule comes near the negative side of another water molecule, they attract each other and form a bond. This "bipolar" nature of water molecules gives water its cohesive nature, and thus, its stickiness and clumpability (maybe "dropability" is a better term?).

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