A Water Molecule's Chemical Formula Isn't Really H20

hackwrench writes "According to this article in Physics News Update, a water molecule's chemical formula is really not H2O, at least from the perspective of neutrons and electrons interacting with the molecule for only attoseconds (less than 10-15 seconds). According to new and recent experiments, neutrons and electrons colliding with water for just attoseconds will see a ratio of hydrogen to oxygen of roughly 1.5 to 1, so a more accurate formula for water under these circumstances would be H1.5O."

Comments

Lower interaction rate, not fewer atoms.

[Christopher Thomas]

The spin in the article is misleading. What's actually happening is that the interaction cross-section between electron and neutron beams and the hydrogen in water (and in things like hexane) is lower than expected relative to the interaction cross-section with oxygen or carbon.

The conjecture about why the phenomenon occurs (entanglement of protons) is interesting, but they're going to need to find a plausible mechanism and confirm that it's happening before we really know what's going on.

Re:Can you say WRONG

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

Must agree Markus. The cow leg counter is a great example.

The absurdity in the article makes one wonder where we've been getting all that hydrogen from for all these years. We've been cracking H2O with electrolysis and been getting both H's pretty consistently for decades. The experiments that show the PH are pretty solid as well, so it seems a little early to start theorizing that black holes are giving off the extra half a mole of Hydrogen we've been getting out of a mole of water.

The cool part (that they seemed to entirely miss) is that these techniques could be used to confirm/reject models for wave-theory covalent bonding. Maybe that tough little benzene ring is resonant at more than just the electron shell level....

Wish there was more detail on the experiment

[jgoemat]

This does not mean that water molecules have one and a half hydrogen atoms at all. If you use electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen from a quantity of water, you will get VERY close to twice the number of oxygen atoms as hydrogen. If they gave a little more detail on their experiments it would be helpful to judge what they actually mean.

For instance, if they are just shooting electrons and neutrons at water and counting how many hit hydrogen nuclei and how many hit oxygen nuclei, you would expect a larger number than normal to hit oxygen since the nucleus is larger (three times the protons and neutrons of hydrogen). They do say "25% fewer protons than expected", but they don't say what they expected or why.

Also, did they have the water in a vacuum chamber? If not, there would be dissolved gasses present in the water that their beam could hit as well. I didn't notice any count for Nitrogen so they must not have done it in a glass sitting on a table, but they don't say.