Catching water’s hidden transition

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Source: Science Magazine

Original: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aef3474?af=R...

Published: 2026-03-26T06:00:07Z

Scientists have captured a structural transformation in the short-lived liquid state of supercooled water using rapid measurements.[1] The study focuses on the hidden passage of water in the supercooled state.[1] The research was published in the journal Science, Volume 391, Number 6792, Pages 1318-1319, March 2026.[1] Experiments revealed the transition of water to a state where frozen layers of H₂O and slowly moving H₂O molecules coexist.[1][2] This premelting state involves the melting of imperfectly bound water molecules by hydrogen bonds before the ice melts completely.[2] Observations confirmed two seemingly contradictory states of water in the nanopores of a molecular crystal with a diameter of approximately 1.6 nm.[2] Measurements of NMR spectra demonstrated a hierarchical three-layer structure of water with different movements and bonds.[2] Water in nanopores freezes in a different structure than bulk ice and first passes through a distorted hydrogen network.[2]