Question about Water (H2O)?

Question

this is a stupid question i know... but what is the basis behind water wetting something? Like what happens when water hits a paper towel. it gets wet. What is going on exactly. If it is absorbed, why do they call it absorbed if its still wet?

Answer 1

Take a plastic mixing bowl from your kitchen, and splash some water around in it. You will probably observe that the water does not cover the inside surface uniformly, but remains dispersed into drops. The same effect is seen on a dirty windshield; turning on the wipers simply breaks hundreds of drops into thousands. By contrast, water poured over a clean glass surface will wet it, leaving a uniform film.

When a liquid is in contact with a solid surface, its behavior depends on the relative magnitudes of the surface tension forces and the attractive forces between the molecules of the liquid and of those comprising the surface. If an H2O molecule is more strongly attracted to its own kind, then surface tension will dominate, increasing the curvature of the interface. This is what happens at the interface between water and a hydrophobic surface such as a plastic mixing bowl or a windshield coated with oily material. A clean glass surface, by contrast, has -OH groups sticking out of it which readily attach to water molecules through hydrogen bonding; this causes the water to spread out evenly over the surface, or to wet it. A liquid will wet a surface if the angle at which it makes contact with the surface is more than 90°. The value of this contact angle can be predicted from the properties of the liquid and solid separately.

If we want water to wet a surface that is not ordinarily wettable, we add a detergent to the water to reduce its surface tension. A detergent is a special kind of molecule in which one end is attracted to H2O molecules but the other end is not; the latter ends stick out above the surface and repel each other, cancelling out the surface tension forces due to the water molecules alone.

Answer 2

Actually it is a silly misunderstanding of the concept lying behind it.
The process of absorption is a surface phenomena. So all the water that is absorbed is distributed all "over" the cloth and that makes the sensation for the person to feel wet when he touches the object or cloth when it has absorbed water.
We call it absorbed because we here referring to the cause of the wetness and because of the cause only the cloth or object had gone wet.
I hope that would help!

Answer 3

Water fills in all available pore spaces.

The paper towel you reference has pore spaces which consist of open pockets of air. The water fills those spaces and adheres to the fabric, thus making it wet.

A sheet of stainless steel will be without pore spaces, or depending on the finish, may have very few pore spaces for the water to fill in, thus the water flows off the sheet of metal instead of soaking in.

As for the absorption question, the pore spaces are not only within the fabric but are on the surface as well. So, if the amount of water exceeds the available amount of pore spaces it will run off as well. Thus when you wring out a paper towel, the extra water flows off (and out) of it. You can wring it out several times until no more flows off, and the available pore spaces will still be filled with water leaving it with a wet feeling.

Clear as mud?

Hope it answers your question.

Answer 4

Well as far as I know paper as every other material has space between it's molecules therefore when water gets in contact with it occupies the space left between the Molecules but you can see that it still feels wet but not because the water is outside like it can be on the floor but due to the properties of the material when you touch it the molecules of water move to the point that they leave the spaces that they occupied free and collapse to your hands

Answer 5

If you imagine metals like a cliff,
a paper towel like a forest,
and people as water.

theres a crowd of people that try to run into the cliff... they bash themselves unconscious and fall on the ground (you can see them all lying knocked out on deck.

then they get up and run into the forest and disappear ^_^
what im trying to say is that porous material have gaps in them that allow the tiny water molecules to squeeze through the gaps... hope that explains ^_^

Answer 6

The blessing of water would nicely be completed by using any priest or deacon. undergo in innovations, the prayer is got here across interior the Church's ritual books (Roman Missal, ceremony of Baptism of infants, ceremony of Christian Initiation of Adults, e book of reward). the ultimate thank you to obtain Holy Water is to bypass to a parish church the place that is presented for loose, deliver a small field/bottle. no longer previously the Vatican issued a directive relating to the addition of the "sign of the circulate" to the e book of reward. Exception: in many international locations (rather third international worldwide places the place there are few monks), they have human beings that functionality catechists -- they're in fact experienced commissioned persons authorized by using the community bishop to furnish Catholic amenities while no priest is accessible. God bless'

Answer 7

The term is 'ADSORBED' when a solid is used to soak up a liquid.
'Adsorption' is "The ability of the molecules of some solids to hold on their surface, molecules of other substances, solid, liquid or gas".
A process used to dehydrate gases and liquids using a solid desiccant like Alumina (Aluminium Oxide).

(A filter used to remove solid particles is also an 'Adsorption' process).

Answer 8

U need to deal with your problem.