Liquid water is a dynamic polydisperse branched polymer.

We developed the RexPoN force field for water based entirely on quantum mechanics. It predicts the properties of water extremely accurately, with T melt = 273.3 K (273.15 K) and properties at 298 K: ΔHvap = 10.36 kcal/mol (10.52), density = 0.9965 g/cm3 (0.9965), entropy = 68.4 J/mol/K (69.9), and dielectric constant = 76.1 (78.4), where experimental values are in parentheses. Upon heating from 0.0 K (ice) to 273.0 K (still ice), the average number of strong hydrogen bonds (SHBs, rOO ≤ 2.93 Å) decreases from 4.0 to 3.3, but upon melting at 273.5 K, the number of SHBs drops suddenly to 2.3, decreasing slowly to 2.1 at 298 K and 1.6 at 400 K. The lifetime of the SHBs is 90.3 fs at 298 K, increasing monotonically for lower temperature. These SHBs connect to form multibranched polymer chains (151 H2O per chain at 298 K), where branch points have 3 SHBs and termination points have 1 SHB. This dynamic fluctuating branched polymer view of water provides a dramatically modified paradigm for understanding the properties of water. It may explain the 20-nm angular correlation lengths at 298 K and the critical point at 227 K in supercooled water. Indeed, the 15% jump in the SHB lifetime at 227 K suggests that the supercooled critical point may correspond to a phase transition temperature of the dynamic polymer structure. This paradigm for water could have a significant impact on the properties for protein, DNA, and other materials in aqueous media.