Study and theoretical as well as empirical research of the state of water exposed to hydrophylic surfaces

Up to now we performed many experiments concerning the acidification of distilled water exposed to clean nafion beads. Three of them were performed in a highly systematic way and will be reported in detail elsewhere when we decide to publish them together with some other results. Here we can report a summary of results that confirm the almost "endless" capability of nafion to acidify distilled water in long consecutive experiments lasting from 17 – 28 days. We use mostly vials filled with 10 ml or 100 ml of distilled water and most usually 50 small nafion beads which total volume was ~ 0.25 ml. They were cleaned from the beginning and completely dried between the 2nd and the 3rd experiments.

From many repetitions (some of them within the same experiment) we can withdraw rough results telling that the pH of distilled water exposed to nafion in 3 or 4 weeks of exposure drops for around 2.8 points if there were 190 nafion beads (10 ml of water), for 2.6 points if there were 50 beads / 10 ml and for 1.6 points in case of 50 beads / 100 ml. The major part of this drop is achieved in around a week.

Therefore the drop of pH of bulk water (not the part bordering to nafion surface) is in some correspondence with the ratio between the nafion surface and the volume of water: more water – lesser the pH drop. This would speak in favor to some leaking acid from the nafion. However, the drops maintain a similar decrease even after rinsing and after dissolving this potential acid in 10 or 100 ml of water for many weeks. From experiments of Vittorio Elia et al. and some other tests we know that SO3 groups do not leak form nafion even if it is shaken (our beads rest at peace); there are no other strong anions present since nafion is a good exchanger and receiver for cations but not for anions.

From these set of experiment it becomes clearer and clearer that nafion is "leaking" a "shadow" anion as supposed in our main hypothesis.

Time crystals

Coherent domains are very important if not essential factors in organizational capacities of water, water solutions and various water based liquids bordering to hydrophilic surfaces. In a new conception of life's emergence they are seen as essential elements in the process of the origin of organisms – and maintain this importance also up-to present days living forms. The concept of coherent domains rests on the idea of

1) phase matching (laser lake oscillations),

2) repetition of these oscillations ad infinitum and

3) that this is an energy minimum and therefore does not need an input of energy (it is a thermodynamic equilibrium phenomenon).

In other words, CDs are conceived as spontaneously highly ordered dynamic structures, therefore with no production of entropy. It is interesting that quite recently, so called time crystals were found – ordered atomic structures that are not only ordered in space (like ordinary crystals), but also in time, which means they are endlessly oscillating in order. See: http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-announced-a-brand-new-form-of-matter-time-crystals . In this respect, even if from quite different substance, they are similar to CDs and corroborate the latter.

One of the most promising and at the same time challenging ways to penetrate the riddle of the mesoscopic nature of water is to research the anomalies of water joined to nafion. As it is well known from countless experiments mostly performed by Prof. Pollack and his team nafion as well as many other hydrophilic substances (mostly gels, but even metals) form the a so called EZ layer of water. If we limit ourselves to nafion, the most proximal EZ water layer is electrically negative (~ 100 mV), going away from the nafion surface the voltage is continuously falling, reaching 0 mV somewhere at the end of EZ after which it begins with sharp increase in positive direction, reaching its maximum still close to the end of EZ and is then slowly falling. The vertical distribution of pH parallels this electrical occurrence, namely, according to certain researches (personal information) EZ water is alkaline, while the bulk water beyond it is acidic, with the strongest acidity close to EZ layer.

This is one of apparently biggest mysteries of nafion immersed in water. Namely, nafion is classified as a superacid (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superacid ), because of its SO3- ends combined with the fluorinated carbonic backbone. Since the sulfonated proton giving groups are on the surface of nafion one would expect a surplus of protons (actually hydronium ions) in the vicinity of nafion beads or a sheet immersed in water. However, as already said, the opposite is true: water enclosing nafion is alkaline and has a surplus of hydroxide anion (OH-). This represents a chemical paradox. It is true that acidity is achieved at some half millimeter distance from nafion, but this, again, is strange, since sulfonate groups are not present there an neither are they with higher distances (water can be acidic with pH ~ 3 even many cm far from the nafion surface). The fundamental question is what functions as a base in the close neighborhood to superacidic nafion and what as an acid at some distance from its srurface?

We doubt there are any chemical grounds for this weird, chemically contradictory, phenomenon. Therefore we should seek the ground in physic (not even in physical chemistry as this would still be bound to chemistry), more precisely in quantum field theory. We should resort to theories of stable coherent states of water domains proposed by Preparata, Giudice etc. and recently elaborated by De Ninno, Yinnon etc. The main question to be solved is what forms the cationic counterpart to hydroxide anions in EZ layer and what functions as a conjugate base in bulk water beyond EZ, when nafion is exposed to very pure distilled water. From experiments by Elia et al. it stems that there could be no chemical impurities that would leak from nafion and yet there still exist the same electrochemical phenomenon. Therefore two different oppositely charged entities should form cationic and anionic counterparts in the two layers. We are groping into their real state and nature. The discovery of these “shadow” entities may revolutionize chemistry in its different ramifications and physical chemistry as well.