This week, Nature put a water droplet on the cover. If you look closely, you can see a round shape that looks like a drop of water in a swirling fluid, and it contains a structure that looks like a combination of chemicals. In the title, the two words ‘porous (permeable POROUS) water (WATER)’ were strongly put forward, and the description of water that can contain gas at high density was added.
The gas dissolves in water. An example is carbonic acid. When carbonic acid dissolves in water, it becomes carbonated water. Various gases can be dissolved in water, but the amount of gas that liquid water can dissolve is relatively small.
A research team led by Professor Jared Mason of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University in the United States presented a system in which a large amount of gas can be dissolved in a liquid at a high concentration by permanently creating porous water, and published a research paper in the international scientific journal Nature.
The researchers suspended custom microporous nanocrystals in water and other aqueous solutions. Suspension refers to a phenomenon in which substances that are not completely dissolved in a liquid are mixed. The porous nanocrystal surface, which is not dissolved in the liquid but mixed in, repels water molecules, so it is a method of creating ‘pores’ that can easily absorb the gas dissolved in the liquid.
The research team succeeded in storing gases including oxygen and carbon dioxide at a much higher density and higher concentration than in conventional water. The research team said, “This research will have a great impact on the energy field and biomedical field, because the liquid dissolved in oxygen can be used for catalysis or blood applications.”