Water Flashcards
(30 cards)
What percent of your body is made up of water?
60-70%
What type of molecule is water?
Dipolar
What does it mean that water is dipolar?
Water has two different regions that are charged.
What are the two different charged regions of water?
Oxygen which is slightly negative.
Hydrogen which is slightly positive.
Because of the unevenly distributed charge of water, what forms?
Hydrogen bonds between the oxygen and hydrogen of neighbouring water molecules.
What are the 5 properties of water?
Metabolite
Important Solvent
High Heat Capacity
Large Latent Heat of Vaporisation
Strong Cohesion
What does water being a metabolite mean?
It is involved in many chemical reactions such as photosynthesis, condensation and hydrolysis.
What percentage of plasma in the blood is water?
90%
What organelle is largely composed of water?
The cytoplasm
What does water being a solvent mean?
Many substances dissolve in it.
What kind of molecules dissolve readily in water and why?
Polar or charged molecules since water is also charged.
What does the slight positive charge on hydrogen atoms do?
Attract any negative ions in solutes.
What does the slight negative charge on oxygen do?
Attract any positive ions in solutes.
What does hydrophillic mean?
Attracted to water
What does hydrophobic mean?
Repelled by water.
What is an example of a substance that can’t dissolve in water and why?
Lipids since they are nonpolar.
What does dissolving in water allow substances to do?
They can be transported easily around animals or plants via in the blood or xylem to cells they are needed inside of the organism.
What does high specific heat capacity mean?
A lot of energy is required to raise the temperature of water. This is because some of the heat energy is used to break the hydrogen bonds between water molecules.
What does high specific heat capacity allow for?
It allows the temperature of water to remain relatively stable even if the surrounding temperature fluctuates significantly.
What happens if a plant or animal gets too cold?
There won’t be enough kinetic energy for successful collisions.
What does high specific heat capacity provide for aquatic organisms?
A stable environment in terms of temperature.
What does high specific heat capacity prevent for enzymes?
Prevents enzymes from denaturing or reducing in activity with temperature fluctuations.
What is meant by large latent heat of vaporisation?
A lot of energy is needed to convert water in a liquid state to its gaseous state. This is because energy is needed to break the hydrogen bonds between molecules and turn it into a gas.
Why is large latent heat of vaporisation advantageous?
It means that water provides a significant cooling effect.
