Why is pure water a poor conductor of electricity?
A substance conducts electricity if it has mobile charged particles. For example, metals are generally good conductors because their valence electrons can jump from atom to atom; i.e. they have mobile charged particles. Salts in their solid state are not good conductors; they ARE made of charged particles (ions) but the ions cannot freely move. When you dissolve a salt in water, however, that’s a whole other story: the ions become free to move and the saltwater solution conducts electricity very well. Now back to your question: why is pure water a poor conductor? Pure water does have SOME ions in it. Water naturally dissociates to a very limited degree via the following equation: 2H2O <=> H3O(+) + OH(-) However, the equilibrium constant for this dissociation is tiny (Kw = 1e-14), and the ion concentrations are vanishingly small ([H3O(+)] = [OH(-)] = 1e-7 M). In other words, the number of charged particles moving around in solution is very, very small. That’s why pure water is not a goo
