THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF LIQUID AND SUPERCRITICAL WATER

A new universal approach based on the concept of preferential structur e fluctuations has been used to describe the structure of fluids in th e liquid and supercritical states. It has been shown that the structur e of fluids can be presented as a limited set of thermodynamically ben eficial molecular configurations arising as a result of fluctuations o f the nearest environment. When applied to the structure of liquid and supercritical water, this concept allows us to explain the unexpected response of the water structure to strong compression and the unusual behavior of the pair correlation function at supercritical temperatur es, and to examine the temperature dependence of hydrogen bonding. The physical state of the supercritical phase of water has also been anal yzed, which is of practical significance. It is also important that so me inferences drawn from the study of liquid and supercritical water c an be extended to the whole class of fluids.