Comment on When Humans Use Water for Something, Is it Gone For Good or Does It Return To the Water Cycle?
Mubelotix@jlai.lu 1 year ago
Depends. Sometimes the water gets dirty and needs to be treated, sometimes it evaporates and needs to rain, sometimes it could be reused as is
In very rare cases (nuclear fusion) the water is destroyed into its primitive elements
aaaantoine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Simple electrolysis will split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
Nuclear reactions will change the atoms, but you don’t have to go that far to break down water.
Little_mouse@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
You don’t even need to go that far. Water used in concrete is locked in as a structural component. That’s why concrete is described as ‘setting’ instead of just ‘drying’.
MightBeAlpharius@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s pretty easy to break water down, but it’s also super easy to make it - just burn anything organic.
Usually you can’t see the water being formed, but there’s actually a really common example: car exhausts on a cold day. If you notice a bit of water dripping out of the tailpipe of the car in front of you at a red light, that’s actually the moisture in the exhaust fumes condensing on the cold tailpipe.