How to decree polymerization of water?

Question

1 How to make liquid water with high polymerization to water with low polymerization?
2 How to determine polymerization degree of water in liquid?

Answer 1

Water does not polymerize in the traditional sense of forming covalent bonds between monomers. However, water molecules do form short-lived (micro-second) associations with nearest neighbours as dimers, trimers, etc. These are best thought of as a micro-crystallization phenomenon. The degree of polymerization and the lifetime of the "polymer" are temperature dependent with both increasing with decreasing temperature. The O-H stretching mode near 3600 cm-1 is actually a superposition of peaks from monomers, dimers, trimers, etc. Beacause the effective mass of the complex increases with degree of "polymerization" the peaks shift to progressively lower frequency as the degree of polymerization increases. This can be measured by band profile analysis. Note that alcohols exhibit the same behaviour.