Dry water, anyone? Well the delightful oxymoron can work in the combat against global warming, scientists believe.
The unusual substance, which resembles powdered sugar, could provide a new way to absorb and store carbondioxide, it was reported at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The powder shows bright promise for a number of other uses. It may, for instance, be a greener, more energy-efficient way of jumpstarting the chemical reactions used to make hundreds of consumer products. Dry water also could provide a safer way to store and transport potentially harmful industrial materials.
"There’s nothing else quite like it," said Ben Carter, Ph.D., researcher for study leader Professor Andrew Cooper. "Hopefully, we may see ’dry water’ making waves in the future."
Carter explained that the substance became known as "dry water" because it consists of 95 percent water and yet is a dry powder. Each powder particle contains a water droplet surrounded by modified silica, the stuff that makes up ordinary beach sand. The silica coating prevents the water droplets from combining and turning back into a liquid. The result is a fine powder that can slurp up gases, which chemically combine with the water molecules to form what chemists term a hydrate.
Dry water was discovered in 1968 and got attention for its potential use in cosmetics. Scientists at the University of Hull, U.K. rediscovered it in 2006 in order to study its structure, and Cooper’s group at the University of Liverpool has since expanded its range of potential applications.
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