CBSE Class 10 Answered

Solid water is less dense than liquid water. This is an extremely important characteristic property of water. At room temperature, liquid water becomes denser with lowering temperature, just like other substances. But at 4 °C (3.98 more precisely), just above freezing, water reaches its maximum density, and as water cools further toward its freezing point, the liquid water, under standard conditions, expands to become less dense. The physical reason for this is related to the crystal structure of ordinary ice. .

The unusual expansion of freezing water (in ordinary natural settings in relevant biological systems), due to the hydrogen bond, from 4 °C above freezing to the freezing point offers an important advantage for freshwater life in winter. Water chilled at the surface increases in density and sinks, forming convection currents that cool the whole water body, but when the temperature of the lake water reaches 4 °C, water on the surface decreases in density as it chills further and remains as a surface layer which eventually freezes and forms ice. Since downward convection of colder water is blocked by the density change, any large body of fresh water frozen in winter will have the coldest water near the surface, away from the riverbed or lakebed.

Water will freeze at 0 °C (32 °F, 273 K), however, it can be supercooled in a fluid state down to its crystal homogeneous nucleation at almost 231 K (−42 °C)

Water expands significantly as the temperature increases. The density is 4% less than maximum as the temperature approaches boiling.

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