Relationship between Relaxation Time and Viscosity for Water

Abstract

The Debye relationship connecting relaxation time, viscosity, molecular size, and absolute temperature appears to hold almost exactly in the case of water. The Debye equation was formulated on the basic assumption that each molecule can be considered as turning in a viscous continuum as it rotates in dielectric relaxation, and it is well known that this molecular picture is inapplicable to water. It is shown that a similar relationship can be deduced directly from equations based on the hydrogen bonded structure of the liquid.