3.1.7 water

Question 1

what are the properties of water?

Answer 1

metabolite
good solvent
high latent heat of vaporisation
high specific heat capacity
strong cohesive forces

Question 2

what makes water a good metabolite?

Answer 2

many metabolic reactions involve hydrolysis and condensation

Question 3

what makes water a good solvent?

Answer 3

many substances in biological reactions are charged, oppositely charged ions are pulled to polar ends of the water molecules

Question 4

how does water having a high latent heat of vaporisation make it useful ?

Answer 4

useful to cool things down
water evaporates changing from a liquid to a vapour it removes heat energy from a surface

Question 5

how does water having specific heat capacity make it useful?

Answer 5

this is due to presence of lots of hydrogen bonds
a lot of energy is needed to raise the temperature of water by 1°
this means that water inside living organisms remains at a fairly stable temperature

Question 6

how does water having strong cohesive forces make it useful?

Answer 6

cohesive forces support water in the xylem tubes of plants and produce surface tension where water meets air