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A study of supercooled water found reversible structural changes consistent with water behaving as a temperature-dependent mixture of two liquid-like structures. The result supports one model for water’s unusual properties, but it does not prove that water separates into two liquids or establish a critical point at atmospheric pressure.
Why water is considered unusual
Water has a collection of unusual properties, and scientists have proposed that changes in its microscopic structure may help explain them. One model treats liquid water as a mixture of two structural motifs: a high-temperature form and a low-temperature form. Their relative proportions would shift as temperature changes.
Testing such ideas is difficult because water can crystallize rapidly when cooled below its usual freezing point. Supercooling means keeping water liquid below that point long enough to measure it, rather than allowing ice to form first.
How the study observed supercooled water
In a 2020 study, Loni Kringle, Wyatt A. Thornley, Bruce D. Kay and Greg A. Kimmel examined water across 135–245 K. They used nanosecond laser pulses to heat thin films briefly, then tracked structural changes with infrared spectroscopy and rapidly cooled the samples to preserve measurements. This transient approach let the team probe liquid states that are difficult to observe before crystallization takes over.
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The researchers measured infrared signatures associated with water’s structure; they did not directly measure density. The work is described in Kringle et al., “Reversible structural transformations in supercooled liquid water from 135 to 245 K,” Science 369(6510), 1490–1492 (2020), doi:10.1126/science.abb7542. See also the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory publication record.
What the team found
The measured structural changes were reversible and reproducible. The fraction associated with the high-temperature motif declined rapidly as temperature fell from 245 K to 190 K. That temperature-dependent shift is consistent with two-state mixture models of liquid water.
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“A key observation is that all of the structural changes were reversible and reproducible,” said Loni Kringle, postdoctoral researcher and study co-author.
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What the result does—and does not—show
The findings strengthen the case that a changing balance of two liquid-like structures can help account for water’s anomalous behavior. The paper says its data are consistent with two-state mixture models in the supercritical regime.
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That is evidence for a model, not proof that liquid water divides into two separate liquids under ordinary conditions. The experiment did not establish a liquid-liquid critical point at atmospheric pressure, nor did it settle every question about the origin of water’s anomalies. Chemistry World’s discussion frames the result as a hint about why water is unusual; the peer-reviewed paper’s claim is narrower: the observations are consistent with the proposed mixture models.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the measurement window matters
Supercooled water is hard to study precisely because it tends to crystallize in the temperature range of interest. By creating short-lived liquid states with laser pulses and measuring them quickly, the team obtained structural information from a regime that conventional measurements struggle to capture. The method provides a way to investigate water’s changing structure without treating a suggestive structural signature as final proof of a broader theory.
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Sources: PNNL’s accessible explanation and quotation; the PNNL publication record; and the 2020 paper in Science.
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