A new study suggests that some oily molecules, which normally repel water, can be made to dissolve in the liquid when the two substances are squeezed together under extreme pressure.
Researchers applied high pressure to tiny containers filled with water and methane, creating conditions similar to those found on the ocean floor or inside the planets Uranus and Neptune. Under a microscope, hydrophobic methane appears as large droplets in water at normal pressure, similar to oil, demonstrating that the substances do not mix. However, the team found the droplets disappeared at high pressures, indicating that the methane had dissolved.
Edinburgh University researchers used a diamond anvil to apply pressures of up to 20,000 Bars to the methane and water molecules - twenty times greater than the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the deepest part of the world's oceans.
