Such results are only possible under incredibly high pressure. 48 megabars. It’s extremely difficult to implement and hence researching something like this “metallic water” was impossible. Now, thanks to a new study, scientists Observe the phase transition of water to metal under normal conditions.

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Ordinary water conducts current, as it is filled with ions of various substances. Pure water has no free ions, so it is an insulator. However, under high pressure, the atoms are so compressed that the electron orbitals overlap and begin to slide.

Therefore, scientists tried another way of turning pure water into a metal – saturating it with electrons of another substance. For example, alkali metals that give them away easily. The difficulty is that the contact of such a metal with water causes an explosive reaction, so Czech scientists did the opposite. They squeezed a drop of sodium and potassium alloy in a vacuum chamber and applied a water film on it using the vapor deposition method.

The drop turned golden and became a conductor verified by two different spectroscopy techniques. The duration of existence of such a decrease is short, but sufficient for measurements.

A drop in the vacuum chamber: video