LIFE 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Heat Capacity, Benzene, Surface Tension
Document Summary
Water is essential for all life on earth. What is so special about water: cohesive. Water has an unusually high specific heat. Water changes its temperature less than other liquids when it absorbs the same amount of energy. Water heats up: hydrogen bonds are broken and heat is absorbed. Water has a high heat of vaporization: it takes a lot of energy to vaporize water: expands upon freezing. If ice sank, all bodies of water would eventually freeze solid, making life impossible on. Compounds dissolve in water to form a solution. Important properties to know about solutions: solute concentrations, ph. Rates of biological reactions depend on the concentration of the reactants. High concentrations of certain compounds can influence other chemical reactions. Concentration: how much solute is present per volume of solvent in moles (molar (m)) 1m = 1 mole of solute per liter of solvent.
