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Water And Its Properties That Makes It A Essential For All Living Things

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1. Introduction
Water and its properties are very essential for all living things. In fact, scientists are paying close attention to presence of liquid water on other planets in efforts to find extraterrestrial life in space. Water has properties that makes it a key role to sustain life 1. As it is a universal solvent, it acts as a medium for most biochemical reactions 2. Without water, it is impossible for a living thing to function. Zooming out, water is important in daily life as many aspects depend on water. Water is used for domestic and industrial purposes. On average, people in the United States drink 110 million gallon of water everyday 3. In total, 400 billion gallon of water is used in United states everyday 4. Natural freshwater is not completely pure. It contains solute dissolved from erosion of minerals and dissolved gases from the atmosphere 5. Calcium, Ca2+, and magnesium, Mg2+, are the most common and abundant solutes found in natural waters. This is due to the presence of natural minerals such as limestone and dolomite 6. The hardness of water is defined as the concentration of dissolved mineral cations, mainly calcium and magnesium, in water. Therefore, by this definition, a hard water contains high concentration of solutes and a soft water contains low concentration of solutes 5. The following table shows the water hardness category according to the United States Department of Interior and the Water Quality Association 7.
Classification
mg/L or ppm

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