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Physical chemistry

Water's response to the fear of water

Nature volume 491, pages 533–535 (2012)Cite this article

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Spectroscopic analysis reveals that, at low temperatures, hydrophobic molecules dissolved in water strengthen the hydrogen bonding between nearby water molecules. But at high temperatures, the reverse can be true. See Letter p.582

Water-repellent molecules are said to be hydrophobic — which, literally translated, means they have a fear of water. But unlike human phobias, the effects of the molecular fear of water are difficult to predict. For example, if a nanometre-scale hydrophobic ball is inserted into liquid water, one might expect it to break up the hydrogen bonds between water molecules, thus strongly increasing disorder. The actual outcome, however, is much more complex, and so the effects of hydrophobic solutes on the structure of their hydration shells — the layers of water molecules that surround the solutes — have been a topic of debate for almost 70 years. On page 582 of this issue, Davis et al.1 present an invaluable contribution to the discussion by showing that hydrophobic groups in molecules in fact enhance the ordering of the surrounding hydrogen-bond network of water.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Huib J. Bakker is in the Department of Molecular Nanophysics, FOM Institute AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands.,

    Huib J. Bakker

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  1. Huib J. Bakker
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Correspondence to Huib J. Bakker.

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Bakker, H. Water's response to the fear of water. Nature 491, 533–535 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/491533a

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