The process is the first to be experimented by the researchers in a paper published in July 2021. But now, a team of researchers has managed to document the conversion of water to metal and shared the video on YouTube. It is reported that this conversion can only be achieved by contacting pure water with an alkali metal that shares electrons.
In this example, the researchers used a combined alloy of sodium and potassium, and then added free-moving charged particles. To complete this transformation and create the metal from water, the researchers exposed a drop of the alloy to a small amount of water vapor in a vacuum chamber. The water vapor then begins to condense on the surface to fully expand the droplet.
It’s a fascinating idea, and it works really well in the video. Scientists have succeeded in doing what many thought was impossible on Earth. They just had to create a vacuum to do that. However, there is a problem with all this. Typically, alkali metals react explosively with water.
So mixing the two together in normal circumstances can be a very dangerous thing. That’s why a vacuum like the kind used in research experiments is needed to properly create metals from water. And that’s why the researchers added water to the metal instead of the other way around. This allows it to expand and create droplets.
No matter how you look at it, being able to accomplish such a fascinating feat is yet another example of the scientific breakthroughs humans have made in recent years. Maybe in the future, we’ll find another use for this metallic water, or at least it could help us better understand the makeup of planets like Jupiter, which is said to have metallic pure water inside.