2018
Proton Hydration Structures are Asymmetric, Study Reveals
July 31, 2018
A team of researchers at the University of Chicago used broadband 2D IR spectroscopy to reveal proton behavior when acids like HCl dissociate in water. Although general chemistry textbooks typically teach that the proton associates with water as a hydronium ion H3O+, they discovered that the proton is strongly bound between two water molecules and that the structures are predominantly asymmetrical.