New physico-chemical properties of water induced by mechanical treatments. A calorimetric study at 25%C

An extensive thermodynamic study has been carried out on aqueous solutions, obtained through the iteration of two processes: a dilution 1:100 in mass and a succussion. The iteration is repeated until extreme dilutions are reached (less than 1.10(-5) mol kg(-1)) to the point that we may call the resulting solution an 'extremely diluted solution'. We conducted a calorimetric study, at 25%C, of the interaction of those solutions with acids or bases. Namely, we measured the heats of mixing of acid or basic solutions with bidistilled water and compared them with the analogous heats of mixing obtained using the 'extremely diluted solutions'. Despite the extreme dilution of the latter solutions, we found a relevant exothermic excess heat of mixing, excess with respects to the corresponding heat of mixing with the untreated solvent. Such an excess has been found in about the totality of measurements, and of a magnitude being well beyond one that could arise any issue of sensibility of the instrumental apparatus. Here we thus show that successive dilutions and succussions can permanently alter the physico-chemical properties of the solvent water. The nature of the phenomena here described still remains unexplained, nevertheless some significant experimental results were obtained.