What is about a material that makes it more or less absorbent?
In: Chemistry
I write code … not a scientist. Here’s my best guess.
It probably has something to do with surface area and the … there’s a name for it … water tension? Water in space forms a round bubble. You can fill a glass up a little past full and watch it buldge up over the cup. So the surface area “holds” the water by the nature of water tension.
There are two real factors here: Hydrophilicity and surface area. Hydrophilic surfaces have stronger molecular forces pulling water to them. Meanwhile, surface area dictates how much water can get close enough to the material for this force to become significant. A towel, for instance, is made of many tiny fibers, all of which attract water quite a bit. A teflon block, on the other hand, has a very smooth surface and does not attract much water.
There are 6 characteristics of water that make life on this planet possible. Would recommend checking them. Here are two fascinating ones (one may help you answer your question)
1. Water actually becomes less dense when it freezes. Which is odd because colder means the molecules are closer together (hence more dense). If this was the case, all the ice would sink to the bottom of the ocean
2. water is extremely polar (the reason some things absorb water and other don’t) water carried a very interactive charge which promotes interaction. We rarely see a molecule of that size with that amount of polarity
Edit: 3rd is the cohesion of water, the way it sticks together which ties into point 2. See some others mentioning that
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