The Importance Of Water In Living Organisms

Water is one of the most abundant compounds on earth and is the basic building block of life. All organisms on earth rely on water as it is the medium in which several reactions take place inside and outside the living cell and also because of its many special properties such as high specific heat capacity, high latent heat of vaporization, high surface tension, it is a dipolar molecule, it acts a solvent, it is a liquid at room temperature and many other aspects that will be discussed in the paragraphs below. Let’s begin with the simple structure of a water molecule. A molecule of water is composed of two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom by a covalent bond in which electrons are shared. As a result, water is a described as a dipolar molecule since the shared negative hydrogen electrons are attracted towards the oxygen atom, which eventually results in a slight positive charge in each hydrogen atom. In addition, the unshared electrons on the oxygen atom give it a slightly negative charge which basically is why a water molecule is referred to as dipolar. Each negatively charged side of a water molecule

You need a lot of energy to break down the hydrogen bond between water molecules and increase the kinetic energy of particles. This property plays a fundamental role in living organisms. Water cools down and heats up very slowly. Therefore, living organisms can retain heat very well, which ensures that enzymes are working at their optimum temperatures otherwise the enzymes will denature and the organism might die. Moreover, water has a high latent heat of vaporization. As we mentioned before, you need a lot of energy to break down the hydrogen bonds between water molecules and to convert liquid water to a gas at 100°C. This is specifically helpful in the human body where it is used for cooling down the body by sweat if the body temperature exceeds it limit which is about