Metallic water prepared for the first time under terrestrial conditions

Is it possible to produce water that is as conductive as, say, a copper wire? Scientists have hypothesized that this may take place in the cores of large planets, where high pressure compresses water molecules to the point that their electron shells begin to overlap.

Nowadays, generating that kind of pressure on the Earth exceeds human capabilities, and it was therefore assumed that preparing metallic water under terrestrial conditions would remain an elusive goal for the foreseeable future. However, an international team of researchers led by Pavel Jungwirth of IOCB Prague has developed a new method due to which which they succeeded in making metallic water under terrestrial conditions. This water lasted for several seconds. Their paper was recently published in Nature.

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