Chemist's work on understanding water nets national award

Saykally

From staff reports

March 27, 2000
Web posted at: 4:14 p.m. EST (2114 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- Water is where 99 percent of all chemistry on Earth takes place, from manufacturing heart drugs to mixing a chocolate-cake recipe to conceiving children. But because water is so familiar, its highly unusual and extreme properties are easily overlooked.

A physical chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, will be honored Tuesday for his work in understanding water. A national award will be presented to Richard J. Saykally of Piedmont, California, by the American Chemical Society during its annual meeting in San Francisco. With a membership of 161,000 chemists and chemical engineers, the organization is the largest scientific society in the world.

Saykally, 52, and his associates are working to model water on a computer -- in essence, recreating water in virtual space to track and predict the behavior and influences of the compound known as H2O.

"The essential question is, what makes water wet?" he said. "Why does it have such extremely high melting and boiling points compared with similar compounds? Why is it less dense when it becomes solid than when it is liquid? And its solvent properties are unique. That's just the beginning."

The fundamental nature of water occurs because of what Saykally calls "strong tetrahedral hydrogen bonding." That means the two hydrogen atoms of one molecule are attracted to the oxygen atom of another.

Further complicating this property of water, a single water molecule tends to interact not just with its neighbors but with others, tens -- even hundreds -- of molecules away.

"So our approach to solving the problem is to build up the liquid, one molecule at a time and, at every step, to understand every detail about it," Saykally said.

Saykally's team started with two molecules and is up to eight. Along the way, the team has developed innovative laser tools and techniques that help reveal the nature of water on a quantum as well as a molecular level.

When asked why he chose science as a career, Saykally joked that he "wanted to impress girls." With a touch of pride, he said, "It still works. My five- and seven-year-old girls love to help me in the laboratory."

Saykally's other interests include laser spectroscopy, molecular spectroscopy, astrophysics, astrochemistry, ultrasensitive detection of trace species, high-energy molecules and intermolecular forces.

He will receive the Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics from the American Chemical Society.

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American Chemical Society
Dr. Saykally's professional biography

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