Water oligomers in crystal hydrates--what's news and what isn't?

An oxygen-based nucleophile, like water, can undergo addition reactions with aldehydes and ketones. The reaction leads to the formation of hydrates, also referred to as 1,1-diols or geminal diols.
The formation of hydrates is a reversible reaction. Hydrate formation is influenced by steric and electronic factors accompanying the alkyl substituents on the carbonyl group: The rate of hydrate formation increases with a decrease in the number of alkyl groups attached to the carbonyl carbon. Hence,...

An element composed of atoms that readily lose electrons (a metal) can react with an element composed of atoms that readily gain electrons (a nonmetal) to produce ions through complete electron transfer. The compound formed by this transfer is stabilized by the electrostatic attractions (ionic bonds) between the oppositely charged ions.

Overview
Hydrolysis is a chemical reaction in which the addition of water breaks down a polymer into its simpler monomer units. For example, peptides break into amino acids, carbohydrates into simple sugars, and DNA into nucleotides. Enzymes often facilitate these processes.
Hydrolysis Reverses Dehydration Synthesis
Complex carbohydrates can be broken down by breaking the bonds between individual sugar units. The reaction breaks a glycosidic bond as water is added to the compound. The...

Water and other polar molecules are attracted to ions. The electrostatic attraction between an ion and a molecule with a dipole is called an ion-dipole attraction. These attractions play an important role in the dissolution of ionic compounds in water.
When ionic compounds dissolve in water, the ions in the solid separate and disperse uniformly throughout the solution because water molecules surround and solvate the ions, reducing the strong electrostatic forces between them. This process...

Dehydration synthesis (also called a condensation reaction) is the chemical process in which two molecules covalently link together to form a new molecule, along with the release of a water molecule. Many physiologically important compounds form by dehydration synthesis reactions, such as complex carbohydrates, proteins, DNA, and RNA.Synthesis of carbohydratesSugar molecules are covalently linked together by dehydration synthesis. During the reaction, the hydroxyl (-OH) group from one reactant...

Unlike ionic or small covalent molecules, polymers do not form crystalline solids due to the diffusion limitations of their long-chain structures. However, polymers contain microscopic crystalline domains separated by amorphous domains.
Crystalline domains are the regions where polymer chains are aligned in an orderly manner and held together in proximity by intermolecular forces. For example, chains in the crystalline domains of polyethylene and nylon are bound together by van der Waals...