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Asked by anon-207625 to Silvia, Scott, Oliver, Natalie, Michelle, Lowri on 14 Mar 2019.
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Michelle Valkanas answered on 14 Mar 2019:
This is a very interesting question! Chemistry is not my strongest subject, so I cannot give a very specific answer, but the reason is because of hydrogen bonds. Basically the closer molecules are to one another the more dense they are. Gases have very weak bonds (or none at all) and so they are free to float around, while solids are stuck together. Water is typically in a liquid form putting it somewhere in the middle!
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Natalie Lamb answered on 14 Mar 2019:
You’re right. If you put hydrogen gas and oxygen gas together at room temperature nothing would happen. If you think hydrogen gas is actually H2 (H-H) and oxygen is O2 (O-O) the bonds connecting those two together need energy to be broken
Hydrogen and oxygen are both gases at room temperature because the molecules don’t interact very strongly with one another so they are held quite loose together (like a brother and sister being forced to hold hands). When energy is applied and this bond is broken, the hydrogen and oxygen molecules are strongly attracted to each other because they have opposite charges (like metal and a magnet) so they are held very tightly (like two best friends holding hands) so they bunch together tighter, forming a liquid not a gas.
Comments
anon-207625 commented on :
Cool, thank you so much