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# Is exclusion zone water simply "ionized ice ?
ABSTRACT: Water at hydrophilic surface forms a phase that excludes particles. This phase has been proven to release hydrogen ions into the surrounding water, leaving a negatively charged, hydroxide-rich, solid phase where particles are excluded, and positively charged, hydronium-rich, liquid water around it. This charge polarization might be comparable to the p-n junction in a diode. At the p-n junction, electrons transfer from the negatively doped (n-type) silicon into the positively doped (p-type) silicon, as a result of diffusion into the electrically conductive p-type silicon. The electric field that forms pulls the electrons back towards the n-type silicon, in a drift current . The equilibrium between the diffusion current and drift current is a charge polarized double layer at the p-n junction.
# Introduction
In 1947, Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first working transistor. The physical basis of the transistor is the charge polarized double layer that forms at the p-n junction. Thanks to this charge polarization effect, transistors can be turned on and off by a tiny electrical voltage. The laws of physics that support the charge polarization at the p-n junction, formed the basis of the computer revolution, and the modern world. What if similar physical principles also explain the charge polarization effect seen when water contacts hydrophilic surfaces?
Normal ice will exclude particles. Hydrophilic surfaces allow water to hydrogen bond to the surface, and can support the formation of a single molecular layer of ice. This initial layer, anchored to the hydrophilic surface, in turn allows water in the liquid phase to hydrogen bond to it, and supports another one-atom thick layer of ice. This effect is why hydrophilic materials support ice formation.
The exclusion zone phenomena occurs at temperatures far above the melting point of ice. At these temperatures, hydrogen ions in the ice will have high kinetic energy, and diffuse out into the surrounding liquid water (that is conductive to the diffusion of hydrogen ions. ) Like in a transistor, an electric field will form, and it pulls the hydrogen ions back towards the ice. The equilibrium is a charge polarized double-layer.
This ionization prevents the ice from growing larger than a few hundred micrometers, because of the strong negative charge in the ice.
# Prior work
The charge polarization effect in the interfacial water phase has been discovered and documented by Gerald Pollack and colleagues, and many effects of it have been discovered such as that it is the cause of osmosis. The charge polarization has been theorized to result from a compression of the normal solid phase of ice, each molecular sheet is free to move relative to the others, like a liquid made up of individual one-atom thick layers of ice. Hydrogen ions are ejected because of the compression. The phase is stable because each atomic sheet is shifted slightly, so that oxygen atoms face hydrogen atoms.
This liquid-solid phase of water, that Gerald Pollack named the fourth phase of water , could very well be what exclusion zone water looks like at the molecular level. The compression is one explanation of why hydrogen ions are ejected from the phase. But, diffusion and drift of hydrogen ions is also a possible explanation.
# Ice as a p-type material relative to liquid water
Ice, at temperatures above the freezing point where hydrogen ions will tend to diffuse out of the ice, can be defined as a p-type material relative to the bulk water (that is n-type ). The reason is that the hydroxide ions within the ice are locked in place much more strongly than the hydrogen ions. When a hydrogen ion is able to escape by diffusion, the hydroxide ion remains locked in place. This can be contrasted to the auto-ionization of water where the OH- and H3O+ will sort of dance along with each other through the water, and the drift current will dance along the diffusion current . The ice therefore can only release hydrogen ions (or holes if using the same terminology as with semiconductors), while electrons can be thought of as moving from the bulk water into the ice (again borrowing the terminology used in semiconductors, where only one charge carrier moves but the other is conceptualized as moving in the opposite direction. ) Thus, the ice is p-type relative to the bulk water, the bulk water releases electrons, and the ice releases holes .
This model for the charge polarized double layer in interfacial water is thus truly analogous to a p-n junction, a junction between a positive-type and negative-type material where exchange of charge carriers occurs.
# The p-n junction or the fourth phase of water?
Many effects that have been discovered to be caused by the interfacial water phase, such as osmosis, rely on the charge polarization effect. As such, they could also be explained by a p-n junction mechanism for the charge polarization.