On the intactness of hydrogen bonds around nonpolar solutes dissolved in water

Angell developed a simple two-state model of hydrogen bonds with the aim to describe some properties of pure water. Muller extended the two-state model description to treat the unusual thermodynamics of hydrophobic hydration. We show here that, to correctly reproduce a qualitative feature of the temperature dependence of the hydration heat capacity change of nonpolar solutes by means of the two-state Muller's model, the hydrogen bonds in the hydration shell have to be more broken than those in bulk water. This contrasts with the suggestion in the literature that more hydrogen bonds form around a nonpolar solute in water.