Platinum, puddles and water's true nature

Released: May 12, 2016
Water droplets defy predictions, offering insights into fuel cells and cloud formation
Scientists found the tiny melted ice crystallites form pools of water that eventually spread across the surface, thanks to a new technique that lets them produce a “stop action movie” of the water. Image based on image “abstract,” copyrighted 2016 by the American Chemical Society.

Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conduct detailed studies on the nature of water, but the water can disappear when experiments require ultrahigh vacuum. Working at EMSL, the scientists devised a new method that preserves the water and produces a "stop action movie." They captured water's motion every 10 nanoseconds, or hundred millionth of a second. The movie showed tiny melted ice crystallites form pools of water that eventually spread across a platinum surface. Controlling the interactions between water and surfaces are important for developing fuel cells, converting agricultural waste to fuels, and understanding cloud formation for weather patterns and global climate change.

Read more from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Physical Sciences Division.

Reference: Xu Y, CD Dibble, NG Petrik, RS Smith, BD Kay, and GA Kimmel. 2016. "Complete Wetting of Pt(111) by Nanoscale Liquid Water Films." Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 7:541-547. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b02748.