Water

Water 

• Its a metabolite in lots of important metabolic reactions including condensation and hydrolysis
• its a solvent- substances dissolve in it 
• water helps with temperature control because it has a high latent heat of vaporisation and a high specific heat capacity 
• Water molecules are very cohesive, helps water transport in plants 

STRUCTURE 

one atom of oxygen, two atoms of hydrogen- joined by shared electrons

Shared negative hydrogen electrons are pulled towards the oxygen atom, the other side of each hydrogen atom is left with a slight positive charge 

the unshared negative electrons on oxygen atom give a slight negative charge- this makes water a polar molecule-partial positive charge on one sie and partial negative on the other side 

The slightly neg charge oxygen atoms attract the slightly positive-charged hydrogen atoms of other water molecules- this attraction is called hydrogen bonding 

Useful properties of water 

• Water is an important metabolite

many metabolic reactions involve a condensation or hydrolysis reaction…