Xerosydryle

Xerosydryle is a new class of materials, solid at ambient pressure and temperature, deriving from the supramolecular organization of liquid water.
The fundamental molecular constituent of xerosydryle is water (H<sub>2</sub>O), and it is found in liquid water, mixed with it. It has been observed aggregated in small volumes (domains), and it can be separated from liquid water and accumulated in clumps, with the appropriate techniques. The accumulated clumps of xerosydryle appear as a white-ish fluffy, dry substance, stable over time and at high temperature: it can be heated up to 950 °C and preserve 10 - 30% of the initial mass. The clumps of dry xerosydryle, once separated, are easily soluble back in water.
Xerosydryle, as a new material, has only recently been clearly identified with a name of its own. However has already caught the attention of the scientific community, and has been referenced in few publications.
Historical background
As early as late 1960s and early 1970s, the researcher Drost-Hansen reported the first observations of a different behavior of water molecules close to the walls of its container later called exclusion zone, collecting findings of many earlier experiments.
In 1986 Deryagin and his colleagues observed an exclusion zone next to the walls of biological cells.
In 2006 the group of Gerald Pollack reported their observations, and used for the first time the term exclusion zone. They observed that the particles of colloidal and molecular solutes suspended in aqueous solution are excluded from a layer of volume next to hydrophilic surfaces. The exclusion zone has been observed and characterized by several independent groups since those early observations.
Starting from 2013 the research group of Vittorio Elia and Roberto Germano, following the path of their preceding research, and in collaboration with other international researchers, reproduced also the observations of the exclusion zone done by Gerald Pollack, and extended that research, developing a protocol to separate and collect a dry residual from pure water, after putting it in contact with different hydrophilic materials (see preparation techniques). They have advanced the hypothesis that the clumps of white solid material that they can extract from pure water consist of clumps of the same supramolecular structures of pure water that constitute the exclusion zone.
Theoretical model
The generation of these sovramolecular H<sub>2</sub>O nanoclusters that are solid at ambient pressure and temperature is placed by Roberto Germano in the frame of the QED applied to the solid state physics, starting from the structure of the liquid water as derived by the quantum electrodynamical calculations shown by Emilio Del Giudice and his colleagues in 2013.
In these calculations comes out that liquid bulk water has a two phase structure: one phase is in a gas-similar state with molecules that have weak bonds between them. The other phase is composed by small volumes in the bulk (called coherence domains) where the water molecules are in a different state, oscillating in phase among two energetic levels. This state (coherent state ) should be described by quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. The cloud of electrons of the water molecules superstructure oscillate between two quantum states: (a) a ground state, and (b) an excited state. In the excited state one electron per molecule has a higher energy and is almost free (with a binding energy of about 0.5 eV). This coherent state is a quantum superposition of the two states (a) and (b), and the quantum superposition has a component with coefficient 0.9 of the ground state, and a component with 0.1 of the excited state. The electrons in this quantum state oscillate between the ground state and the excited state with a certain frequency, and this oscillation creates an electromagnetic field, which is confined within the super-molecular structure, so that no radiation is observed.<ref name"DelGiudice2013" /><ref name"Elia2022" />
Preparation techniques
Here is the procedure to obtain the solid and dry xerosydryle.
The start is ultrapure water.
Then, a piece of hydrophilic material is immersed in the water. The material can be e.g. hydrophilic cotton, cellophane, Nafion. The water and the hydrophilic material are kept in a container for 15 or 30 minutes.
The water is then squeezed away from the material, and released back in the container, with hands, wearing polyethylene gloves.
The specimen of hydrophilic material is dried at room conditions, and a small sample of water is taken from the container, for measurements.
After around 12 hours the cycle is repeated, immersing the sample in the water container, letting interact, and removing.
The cycles are repeated for several tens of times.<ref name"Elia2018"/><ref name"Elia2019"/>
Finally, to remove the liquid water, a process of lyophilization is applied, i.e. a cycle of freezing below the triple point and then drying by sublimation.
After the lyophilization, a solid residue is collected. This solid residue can be as much as few grams per 1 liter of initial pure water, equivalent to some kg for m of initial pure water .<ref name="Elia2020" />
Excluding impurities as cause for the aggregate
In all the experimental procedures, a great effort is taken in avoiding to contaminate the water.
Moreover, many measurements are performed, and some arguments are presented, to exclude that the solid xerosydryle material extracted is somehow due to the impurities still present in the water sample.
* A growth of the electric conductivity is measured in the water, while the subsequent cycles of interaction with the hydrophilic material are performed. This growth could be due to impurities theoretically coming from the material itself, e.g. ions (chemically inert materials are used, anyway). However, in this case the number of dissolving ions should diminish exponentially. Since the increase of conductivity grows also after many cycles of interaction, this leads to exclude the impurities as cause.<ref name"Elia2018" /><ref name"Elia2019" /><ref name="Elia2020" />
* Experiments have been performed using two techniques: (a) reusing the same sample of hydrophilic material for all the cycles, or (b) using a new sample for each cycle. The behavior of all the chemical and physical parameters measured are the same in the two cases. This also leads to the exclusion of pollutants from the hydrophilic material as cause of the phenomenon of xerosydryle generation.<ref name"Elia2018" /><ref name"Elia2019" /><ref name="Elia2020" />
* The order of magnitude of the increase of the electric conductivity of the water, after the procedure of interaction with hydrophilic material is of the order of 10 up to 10 : the electric conductivity of pure water, at the beginning, is about 1 or 2 μS/cm, and at the end of the cycles can reach values up to 7 x 10 μS/cm. To obtain a similar increase adding electrolytes, an amount of several grams per liter of electrolytic material would be needed. However, measurements of presence of electrolytes has been performed on the water at the end of the cycles, using ion chromatography. Those measurements report a presence of electrolytes lower than the detection limit, which is 0.1 mg per liter.<ref name"Elia2019" /><ref name"Elia2020" />
* The electric conductivity of the sample, at the end of the interaction cycles, is monitored over long periods of time (more than two years), and large increases, decreases, and new increases of this parameter are observed. This behavior, and in particular the re-increase after the decrease, cannot be explained by the presence of impurities, since the specimen is kept in sealed containers. not assignable to impurities.<ref name"Elia2019" /><ref name"Elia2020" />
* Some chemical-physical measurements, called conductometric titration and calorimetric titrations, and other analytical measurements, such as mass spectrometry, can also exclude that the data observed are due to the presence of impurities.<ref name"Elia2018" /><ref name"Elia2019" /><ref name="Elia2020" />

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