The 4th Phase of Water | Dr. Gerald Pollack | TEDxGuelphU

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

University of Washington Bioengineering Professor. Gerald Pollack received his PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He then joined the University of Washington faculty and is now professor of Bioengineering.

In this talk he explains the theory of the fourth phase of water and the uses the phenomenon could be put to.

Thank you.

Water is quite beautiful to look at,

and I guess you probably all know
that you're two-thirds water --

you do, don't you?
Right.

But you may not know that
because the water molecule is so small,

that two-thirds translates
into 99% of your molecules.

Think of it, 99% percent
of your molecules are water.

So, your shoes are carrying around
a blob of water essentially.

Now, the question is, in your cells,

do those water molecules
actually do something?

Are these molecules essentially jobless

or do they do something
that might be really, really interesting?

For that matter are we even really sure
that water is H₂O?

We read about that in the textbook,

but is it possible that some water
is actually not H₂O?

So, these are questions
whose answers are actually not as simple

as you think they might be.

In fact, we're really in the dark
about water, we know so little.

And why do we know so little?

Well, you probably think
that water is so pervasive,

and it's such a simple molecule,

that everything ought to be known
about water, right?

I mean you'd think it's all there.

Well, scientists think the same.

Many scientists think,
och, water it's so simple,

that everything must be known.

And, in fact, that's not at all the case.

So, let me show you, to start with,
a few examples of things about water

that we ought to know,
but we really haven't a clue.

Here's something that you see every day.

You see a cloud in the sky and, probably,
you haven't asked the question:

How does the water get there?

Why, I mean,
there's only one cloud sitting there,

and the water is evaporating everywhere,

why does it go to this cloud
forming what you see there?

So, another question: Could you imagine
droplets floating on water?

We expect droplets to coalesce
instantly with the water.

The droplets persist for a long time.

And here's another example
of walking on water.

This is a lizard from Central America.

And because it walks on water
it's called the Jesus Christ lizard.

At first you'll say, "Well, I know
the answer to this,

the surface tension is high in water."

But the common idea of surface tension

is that there's a single molecular layer
of water at the top,

and this single molecular layer
is sufficient to create enough tension

to hold whatever you put there.

I think this is an example
that doesn't fit that.

And here's another example.

Two beakers of water.
You put two electrodes in,

and you put high voltage between them
and then what happens is a bridge forms,

and this bridge is made of water,
a bridge of water.

And this bridge can be sustained

as you move one beaker away
from the other beaker,

as much as 4 centimeters,

sustained essentially indefinitely.

How come we don't understand this?

So, what I mean is that there are
lots of things about water

that we should understand,
but we don't understand,

we really don't know.

So, okay, so what do we know about water?

Well, you've learned
that the water molecule

contains an oxygen and two hydrogens.

That you learn in the textbooks.
We know that.

We also know there are
many water molecules,

and these water molecules are
actually moving around microscopically.

So, we know that.
What don't we know about water?

Well, we don't know anything
about the social behavior of water.

What do I mean by social?
Well, say, sitting at the bar

and chatting with your neighbor.

We don't know how water molecules
actually share information or interact,

and also we don't know about
the actual movements of water molecules.

How water molecules
interact with one another,

and also how water molecules
interact with other molecules

like that purple one sitting there.
Unknown.

Also the phases of water.

We've all learned
that there's a solid phase,

a liquid phase and a vapor phase.

However, a hundred years ago,

there was some idea
that there might be a fourth phase,

somewhere in between a solid and a liquid.

Sir William Hardy,
a famous physical chemist,

a hundred years ago exactly,

professed that there was actually
a fourth phase of water,

and this water was kind of more ordered
than other kinds of water,

and in fact had a gel-like consistency.

So, the question arose to us --

you know, all of this was forgotten,
because people began, as methods improved,

to begin to study molecules
instead of ensembles of molecules,

and people forgot about
the collectivity of water molecules

and began looking, the same as in biology,

began looking at individual molecules
and lost sight of the collection.

So, we thought we're going to look at this

because we had some idea
that it's possible

that this missing link, this fourth phase,

might actually be the missing link

so that we can understand the phenomena
regarding water that we don't understand.

So, we started by looking somewhere
between a solid and a liquid.

And the first experiments that we did
get us going.

We took a gel, that's the solid,
and we put it next to water.

And we added some particles to the water

because we had the sense that particles
would show us something.

And you can see
what happened

is that the particles began
moving away from the interface

between the gel and the water,

and they just kept moving
and moving and moving.

And they wound up stopping at a distance

that's roughly the size
of one of your hairs.

Now, that may seem small,
but by molecular dimensions

that's practically infinite.
It's a huge dimension.

So, we began studying
the properties of this zone,

and we called it, for obvious reasons,
the exclusion zone,

because practically everything
you put there would get excluded,

would get expelled
from the zone as it builds up,

or instead of exclusion zone,
EZ for short.

And so we found that
the kinds of materials

that would create or nucleate
this kind of zone,

not just gels, but we found
that practically every water-loving,

or so-called hydrophilic surface
could do exactly that,

creating the EZ water.

And as the EZ water builds,
it would expel all the solutes

or particles, whatever
into the bulk water.

We began learning about properties,
and we've spent now quite a few years

looking at the properties.

And it looks something like this:

You have a material next to water and
these sheets of EZ layers begin to build,

and they build and build and
they just keep building up one by one.

So, if you look at the structure
of each one of these planes,

you can see that it's a honeycomb,
hexagonal kind of structure,

a bit like ice, but not ice.

And, if you look at it carefully,
you can see the molecular structures.

So, of course, it consists
of hydrogen and oxygen,

because it's built from water.

But, actually,
they're not water molecules.

If you start counting
the number of hydrogens

and the number of oxygens,

it turns out that it's not H₂O.

It's actually H₃O₂.

So, it is possible that there's water
that's not H₂O, a phase of water.

So, we began looking, of course, more into
these extremely interesting properties.

And what we found is, if we stuck
electrodes into the EZ water,

because we thought there might be
some electrical potential,

it turned out that there's lots
of negative charge in that zone.

And we used some dyes
to seek positive charge,

and we found that in the bulk water zone
there was an equal amount of positivity.

So, what's going on?

It looked like,
that next to these interfaces

the water molecule
was somehow splitting up

into a negative part and a positive part.

And the negative part sat
right next to the water-loving material.

Positive charges went out beyond that.

We found it's the same,
you didn't need a straight interface,

you could also have a sphere.

So, you put a sphere in the water, and
any sphere that's suspended in the water

develops one of these exclusion zones,
EZ's, around it, with the negative charge,

beyond that is all the positive charge.
Charge separation.

It didn't have to be only
a material sphere, in fact,

you could put a droplet in there,
a water droplet,

or, in fact, even a bubble,
you'd get the same result.

Surrounding each one of these entities
is a negative charge

and the separated positive charge.

So, here's a question for you.

If you take two of these negatively
charged entities,

and you drop them in a beaker of water
near each other,

what happens to the distance between them?

I bet that 95% of you would say:

Well, that's easy, I learned in physics,
negative and negative repel each other,

so, therefore they're going to go
apart from one another, right?

That what you'd guess?

Well, the actual result
if you think about it,

is that it's not only the negative charge
but you also have positive charge.

And the positive charge
is especially concentrated

in between those two spheres,

because they come from contributions
from both of those spheres.

So, there are a lot of them there.

When you have positive
in between two negatives

what happens is that you get
an attractive force.

And so you expect these two spheres
to actually come together

despite the fact that
they have the same charge,

and that's exactly what happens.

It's been known for for many years.

They come together, and if you have
many of them, instead of just two of them,

you'll get something that looks like this.

They'll come together and
this is called a colloid crystal.

It's a stable structure.

In fact, the yogurt that
you might have had this morning

probably consists
of what you see right here.

So, they come together
because of the opposite charge.

The same thing is true
if you have droplets.

They come together because of
the opposing charges.

So, when you think of droplets,
and aerosol droplets in the air,

and think about the cloud,

it's actually the reason that
these aerosol droplets come together

is because of this opposite charge.

So, the droplets from the air,
similarly charged,

come together coalesce,
giving you that cloud in the sky.

So the fourth phase, or EZ phase,
actually explains quite a lot.

It explains, for example, the cloud.

It's the positive charge

that draws these negatively charged
EZ shells together

to give you a condensed cloud
that you see up in the sky.

In terms of the water droplets,

the reason that these are sustained
on the surface

for actually sometimes
as long as tens of seconds --

and you can see it if you're in a boat

and it's raining, you can sometimes
see this on the surface of the lake,

these droplets are sustained
for some time --

and the reason they're sustained is
that each droplet contains this shell,

this EZ shell,
and the shell has to be breached

in order for the water to coalesce
with the water beneath.

Now, in terms of the Jesus Christ lizard,
the reason the lizard can walk,

it's not because of
one single molecular layer,

but there are many EZ layers
lining the surface,

and these are gel-like, they're stiffer
than ordinary surfaces

so, therefore, you can float a coin
on the surface of the water,

you can float a paperclip,

although if put it beneath the surface
it sinks right down to the bottom.

it's because of that.

And in terms of the water bridge,

If you think of it as plain old, liquid,
bulk water -- hard to understand.

But if you think of it as EZ water
and a gel-like character,

then you can understand how it could be
sustained with almost no droop,

a very stiff structure.

Okay, so, all well and good,
but why is this useful for us?

What can we do with it?

Well, we can get energy from water.

In fact, the energy that we can get
from water is free energy.

It's literally free.
We can take it from the environment.

Let me explain.

So, you have a situation in the diagram
with negative charge and positive charge,

and when you have two opposing charges
next to each other

it's like battery.

So, really we have
a battery made of water.

And you can
extract charge from it,

so that is right now.

Batteries run down, like your cell phone
needs to be plugged in every day or two,

and so the question is: Well, what charges
this water battery?

It took us a while to figure that out,
what recharges the battery.

And one day, we're doing an experiment,
and a student in the lab walks by

and he has this lamp.

And he takes the lamp
and he shines it on the specimen,

and where the light was shining
we found that the exclusion zone grew,

grew by leaps and bounds.

So, we thought, aha, it looks like light,

and we've many experiments to show,

that the energy for building this
comes from light.

It comes not only from the direct light,
but also indirect light.

What do I mean by indirect light?

Well, what I mean is
that the indirect light

is, for example, infrared light
that exists all over this auditorium.

If we were to turn out all the lights,
including the floodlights,

and I pulled out my infrared camera
and looked at the audience,

you'd see a very clear, bright image.

And if I looked at the walls
you'd see a very clear image.

And the reason for that is that
everything is giving off infrared energy.

You're giving off infrared energy.

That's the energy that's most effective

in building this charge separation
and this fourth phase.

So, in other words you have the material,
you have the EZ water,

and you collect energy from outside,

and as you collect the energy
from outside,

the exclusion zone builds.

And if you a take away that extra energy,
it will go back to its normal size.

So, this battery is basically
charged by light, by the sun.

It's a gift from the sun.

If you think about it, what's going on,

if you think about the plant
that you have sitting in your kitchen,

you're getting light,
you know where the energy comes from,

the energy comes from the light.

It's the photons that hit the plant,
that supply all the energy, right?

And the plant converts it
to chemical energy,

the light energy to chemical energy,
and the chemical energy

is then used to do growth and metabolism
and bending and what-have-you.

That we all know, it's very common.

What I'm suggesting to you
from our results,

is that the same thing happens in water.

No surprise, because the plant
is mostly water,

suggesting to you that energy
is coming in from outside,

light energy, infrared energy,
radiant energy basically,

and the water is absorbing the energy

and converting that energy
into some sort of useful work.

And so we come to the equation E = H₂O.

A bit different from the equation
that you're familiar with.

But I think it really is true that
you can't separate energy from water;

water is a repository of energy
coming free from the environment.

Now can we harvest some of this energy,
or is it just totally useless?

Well, we can do that because you have
a negative zone and a positive zone.

And if you put two electrodes in,
you can get energy, right?

Just like a battery.

And we've done that
and we were able to,

for example, have
a every simple optical display.

It can be run from the energy
that you can get from here.

And obviously we need to build it up
into something bigger and more major

in order to get the energy.

This is free energy
and it comes from water.

Another opportunity we've been developing

is getting drinking --
clear, free, drinking water.

If you have a hydrophilic material,

and you put contaminated water next to it

with junk that you want to get rid of --

So, what happens is, I've shown you,

is that this stuff gets excluded
from beyond the exclusion zone,

and the remaining EZ
doesn't have any contaminants.

So, you can put bacteria there,
and the bacteria would go out.

And because the exclusion zone is big,

it's easy to extract the water
and harvest it.

And we've done that.

And we're working on
trying to make it practical.

Well, one of the things we noticed
is that it looks as though salt

is also excluded.

So, we're now thinking about
extending this,

putting in ocean water.

And you put the ocean water in,
and if the salt is excluded,

then you simply take the EZ water
which should be free of salt,

and you can get drinking water then
out of this.

So, getting biological energy.

The cells are full of macromolecules,
proteins, nucleic acids,

and each one these is a nucleating site
to build EZ waters.

So, around each one of these is EZ water.

Now, the EZ water is negatively charged,
the region beyond is positively charged,

so you have charge separation.

And these separated charges
are free, available,

to drive reactions inside your cells.

So, what it means really is,
it's a kind of photosynthesis

that your cells are doing.

The light is being absorbed,

converted into charge separation,

just the same that happens
in photosynthesis,

and these charges are used by you.

One example of this,
obtaining energy on a larger scale,

I mean the energy is coming in
all the time from all over

and it's absorbed by you,
actually quite deeply:

If you take a flashlight and
you shine it through the palm,

you can actually see it through here,
so it penetrates quite deeply,

and you have many blood vessels
all around you,

especially capillaries near the periphery,

and it's possible that some of this energy
that's coming in

is used to help drive the blood flow.

Let me explain that in a moment.

What you see here is the microcirculation,
it's a piece of muscle,

and you can see a few capillaries
winding their way through.

And then these capillaries are
the red blood cells that you can see.

A typical red blood cell looks like
on the upper right.

It's big, but when they actually flow,
they bend.

The reason they bend
is that the vessel is too small.

So, the vessel is sometimes
even half the size of the red blood cells.

They're going to squinch and go through.

Now it requires quite a bit of energy
to do that,

and the question is: Does your heart
really supply all the energy

that's necessary for driving this event?

And what we found is a surprise.

We found that if we take a hollow tube
made of hydrophilic material,

just like a straw,
and we put the straw in the water,

we found constant unending flow
that goes through.

So, here's the experiment,
here's the tube,

and you can see
that the tube is put in the water.

We fill out the inside just to make sure
it's completely filled inside,

put into the water and the water contains
some spheres, some particles,

so we can detect
any movements that occurred.

And you look in the microscope
and what you find looks like this:

unending flow through the tube.

It can go on for a full day
as long as we've looked at it.

So, it's free;
light is driving this flow,

in a tube, no extra sources of energy
other than light.

So, if you think about the human,

and think about the energy that's being
absorbed in your water, and in your cells,

it's possible that we may use
some of this energy

to drive biological processes in a way
that you had not envisioned before.

So, what I presented to you
has many implications

for science and technology
that we've just begun thinking about.

And the most important is
that the radiant energy

is absorbed by the water,
and giving energy to the water

in terms of chemical potential.

And this may be used
in biological contexts,

for example, as in blood flow,

but in many other contexts as well.

And when you think of chemical reactions
that involve water,

you just think of a molecule
sitting in the water.

But what I've shown you is not just that,

you have the particle, EZ,
positive charge, the effect of light,

all of those need to be
taken into account.

So, it may be necessary to reconsider
many of the kinds of reactions,

for understanding these reactions

that we've learned about
in our chemistry class.

Weather.
So, I've shown you about clouds.

The critical factor is charge.

If you take a course in weather and such,

you hear that the most critical factors
are temperature and pressure.

Charge is almost not mentioned,

despite the fact that you can see
lightning and thunder all the time.

But charges may be much more important
than pressure and temperature

in giving us the kind of weather
that we see.

Health. When you're sick
the doctor says drink water.

There may be more to that
than meets the eye.

And in food, food is mostly water,

we don't think of food as being water,
but it's mostly water.

If we want to understand how to freeze it,
how to preserve it,

how to avoid dehydration,

we must know something
about the nature of water,

and we're beginning
to understand about that.

In terms of practical uses,
there's desalination a possibility,

and by the way, the desalination,

where you need it most
is where the sun shines the most,

in dry areas.

So, the energy for doing all this
is available, freely available, to do it.

And for standard filtration as well,

a very simple way of removing bacteria
and such from drinking water --

it could be actually quite cheap
for third world countries.

And finally, getting electricity
out of water

through the sun's energy that comes in,
another possibility.

So, I've tried to explain to you
water's fourth phase,

really understanding that water has
not three phases, but four phases.

And understanding the fourth phase,
I think is the key

to unlock the door to the understanding
of many, many phenomena.

And mostly, what we actually like most,

is understanding
the gentle beauty of nature.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)