Pure Water: The Unsung Hero Of The Lab
Pure water plays a pivotal role in almost every life science experiment, diagnostic test or chemical reaction. It’s so important, there’s even a high impact journal dedicated to reporting on new water-based research and purification methods. Sadly, lab water still rarely gets the attention it deserves. Without pure water, very few experiments, tests or reactions would be possible. Thanks to its favorable chemical and physical properties, water is often considered the ‘universal solvent’ as it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Perhaps even more importantly, many biochemical reactions will only take place within aqueous solutions. One potential limitation of water is that it is a weak eluent and a poor solvent of most organic compounds, due to it being highly polar at ambient temperatures. However, superheated water at 200°C has similar properties to typical organic solvents such as methanol, so it can be used to dissolve many organic compounds. This adds even more c