Today in Oxymorons: Scientists Create “Dry Water”

While not exactly the kind of just-add-water water that would snowball into a perpetual flood and turn our world into a Kevin Costner movie, scientists have created “dry water.”

The dry water looks a bit like an artificial sweetener because each droplet of water is encased in a silica coating, making the grain of water (take that, sand!) about 95% liquid. Due to it’s ability to absorb gasses three times better than regular water, scientists suggest dry water could be used to clean up carbon dioxide and help curb global warming.

Yahoo! News reports:

Dr. Ben Carter, from the University of Liverpool, presented his research on dry water at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Another application demonstrated by Dr Carter’s team was using dry water as a catalyst to speed up reactions between hydrogen and maleic acid. This produces succinic acid, a key raw material widely used to make drugs, food ingredients, and consumer products.

Usually hydrogen and maleic acid have to be stirred together to make succinic acid. But this is not necessary when using dry water particles containing maleic acid, making the process greener and more energy efficient.

As Dr. Ben Carter puntificated (get it?!):

“There’s nothing else quite like it. Hopefully, we may see dry water making waves in the future.”

(Unexplained Mysteries via Yahoo! News)