Anomalous Water, Porous Glass and Silicic Acid

Abstract

THE detection of impurity ions has been regarded as an important feature of the study of polymerized water or anomalous water but chemical analyses have proved contradictory because of the extremely small quantities of material collected. Spectrochemical analyses by Lippincott et al.¹ showed that there were only trace concentrations of cationic contaminants in their samples. Their limit of detection of relevant cations was 10⁻¹¹ g, which suggests a cation concentration of less than 0.001%. Rousseau and Porto², however, found high concentrations of cations (containing 20–60% Na) in anomalous water prepared in quartz capillaries. Rabideau and Florin³ found that a significant weight fraction of concentrated anomalous water residues consisted of Na, B(˜6%) and oxygen, and pointed out the similarity of the physical properties of anomalous water and concentrated solutions of sodium tetraborate. Everett et al.⁴ reported that the colligative properties of anomalous water are consistent with those of a silicic acid gel.