Water as a Counterion-Deficient Charge Reservoir
- Publié
- Serveur de preprints
- Preprints.org
- DOI
- 10.20944/preprints202603.1577.v2
Water can support counterion-deficient aqueous charge states when one dissolved charge is generated selectively and the compensating opposite charge is not co-stored in the same phase. We formulate a water-specific chemistry-first framework in which the positive branch is written as He2+ + H2O(l) → He(g) + 2H+(aq) + 1/2 O2(g) and the negative branch as 2e- + 2H2O (l) → 2 OH–(aq) + H2(g). Unlike the nonaqueous case, the aqueous treatment emphasizes protonic and hydroxidic defect chemistry, oxygen lone-pair participation in low-energy helium-ion electron scavenging, and the strong thermal load of the positive branch. Maxwell relaxation and interfacial electrostatics explain how the liquid remains near-neutral in the bulk while sustaining counterion deficiency chemically. The framework yields stoichiometric, transport, and stability relations, a conservative aqueous entry criterion of