“Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There
is no life without water”
Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi
The foregoing quote speaks volumes for the indispensability
of water in life. I am going to share with you some ideas about its chemical
composition.
Water is a transparent fluid which forms the world's streams, lakes, oceans and rain, and is the major constituent of the fluids of living things.
Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface.[1] It is vital for all known forms of life. On Earth, 96.5% of the planet's water is found in seas and oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other large water bodies, and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation.] Only 2.5% of the Earth's water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount of the Earth's freshwater (0.003%) is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.
Much of the universe's water is produced as a byproduct of star formation. When stars are born, their birth is accompanied by a strong outward wind of gas and dust. When this outflow of material eventually impacts the surrounding gas, the shock waves that are created compress and heat the gas. The water observed is quickly produced in this warm dense gas.
The chemical formula for water is H2O (or less commonly HOH). What does H2O mean? Each water molecule is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, thus when the atoms bond up we have H2O. The atoms are joined by covalent bonding, meaning that they share electrons (as opposed to iconic bonding in which atoms completely transfer electrons).
HYDROGEN
Hydrogen is a highly flammable chemical
element that occurs in great abundance throughout the universe. In fact, this
element makes up approximately 75% of the universe, by volume, and it appears
in a very large number of compounds, especially those which make up various organic
materials. Many people are familiar with hydrogen as a potential fuel source,
and everyone consumes it every day, in the water people drink and the foods
they eat. Throughout the universe,
hydrogen is mostly found in the atomic and plasma states whose properties are quite different from molecular hydrogen.
The atomic number of hydrogen is one, and it is
identified by the symbol H on the periodic table. It is a unique standalone
element, not classified with any other elements. Many scientists think of
hydrogen as a kind of elemental building block, since its simple structure is
the basis of so many things. With an atomic weight of 1.00794 u,
hydrogen is the lightest element on the periodic table.
In 1783, Antoine Lavoisier
proposed a name for the element (Hydrogen), adding together the Greek hydros
for “water” and genes for “born or formed.” Lavoisier recognized that
when hydrogen was burned, it produced water as a byproduct, through its
combination with oxygen in the air.
OXYGEN
Oxygen (O) is a nonmetallic chemical element of
Group 16 (VIa, or the oxygen
group) of the periodic
table. Oxygen is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas essential to living organisms, being
taken up by animals, which convert it to carbon
dioxide; plants, in
turn, utilize carbon dioxide as a source of carbon and return the oxygen to the
atmosphere. Oxygen forms compounds by reaction
with practically any other element, as well as by reactions that displace
elements from their combinations with each other; in many cases, these
processes are accompanied by the evolution of heat and light and in such cases
are called combustions. Its most important compound is water.
At 46 percent of the mass, oxygen is the
most plentiful element in Earth’s crust. The proportion of oxygen by volume in
the atmosphere is 21 percent and by weight in seawater is 89 percent. Natural oxygen is a
mixture of three stable isotopes: oxygen-16 (99.759 percent), oxygen-17 (0.037 percent), and oxygen-18 (0.204 percent).
From what I have indicated I
hope it is becoming clearer to you the chemical composition of water. Let me
indicate again as a way of summary that water is a transparent fluid that forms
the world’s streams, lakes, oceans etc. and rain, and is the major constituent
of the fluids of living things. It is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.
Reference:
en.wikipedia.orgall-water.org
wisegeek.org
britannica.com
allfamousquotes.net
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