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What are slow electrons in water?
They are low-energy electrons released when water molecules interact with ionizing radiation. Their energy is low compared with the radiation that initiated the process. In biological environments, such electrons are relevant to models of radiation damage to biomolecules, but their presence alone does not show that DNA was damaged in a particular experiment or exposure.
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How can water produce electrons that may damage DNA?
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Ionizing radiation removes an inner-valence electron from a water molecule, leaving an excited ion with a vacancy.
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Rather than releasing its energy entirely within that molecule, the excited ion transfers energy to a neighboring water molecule.
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The neighboring molecule ejects a low-energy electron. That transfer-and-ejection sequence is the signature of ICD.
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In water-rich biological environments, low-energy electrons are relevant to radiation-damage pathways. Their role in such models is distinct from directly demonstrating DNA damage in cells or people.
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What is intermolecular Coulombic decay?
ICD is a non-local electronic relaxation process: energy released by an ionized or excited molecule is transferred to a nearby molecule, which is then ionized and emits an electron. The key feature is that the molecule ejecting the electron is a neighbor, not necessarily the one first ionized.
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| Process | Where the energy goes | Which molecule emits the electron |
|---|---|---|
| Intermolecular Coulombic decay (ICD) | Energy transfers to a neighboring molecule. | The neighboring molecule is ionized and ejects the electron. |
| Auger–Meitner decay | An electron in the initially ionized molecule fills the vacancy, and the released energy ejects another electron from that molecule. | The initially ionized molecule. |
This distinction explains why observing ICD in liquid water matters: it demonstrates a neighboring-molecule pathway in the bulk liquid, beyond earlier observations in isolated clusters or small water aggregates. Chemistry World’s explainer describes the mechanism and this distinction: Chemistry World’s account of ICD in water.
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How researchers detected ICD in liquid water
In a paper published in Physical Review Letters on 1 April 2022, Pengju Zhang, Conaill Perry, Tran Trung Luu, Danylo Matselyukh and Hans Jakob Wörner reported the first observation of ICD in liquid water after inner-valence ionization. They combined a monochromatized tabletop high-harmonic source with a liquid microjet and recorded electron–electron coincidence spectra at two photon energies. The coincidence data identified ICD electrons alongside photoelectrons from water’s 2a1 inner-valence band. The journal’s report is available from the Physical Review Letters article.
The measurements provide information useful for modeling the velocity distribution of low-energy electrons in irradiated water. They were spectroscopy measurements: the study did not measure DNA breaks in cells, patient outcomes, population-level risk or an effect size for cancer treatment.
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What a 2025 follow-up found about water isotopes
A 2025 Nature Communications study by Zhang and colleagues compared liquid ordinary water (H2O) with heavy water (D2O) using coincidence measurements and calculations. The authors reported that ICD efficiency, γ, is below one in both liquids and found an efficiency ratio of γ(H2O)/γ(D2O) = 0.86 ± 0.03 for this specific comparison. It is not a universal constant.
The authors interpret the isotope difference in terms of competing relaxation processes. Proton transfer and non-adiabatic relaxation can compete with ICD and close that decay channel; slower nuclear motion in D2O helps explain its higher ICD efficiency. The result qualifies any suggestion that ICD is the only or automatically dominant pathway in liquid water. See the 2025 Nature Communications study.
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Does this mean water causes DNA damage?
No. The described mechanism requires ionization by high-energy radiation; ordinary contact with or consumption of water is not what the experiment examined. The 2022 finding establishes that ICD can produce low-energy electrons in liquid water under the study’s irradiation conditions. It does not show that water exposure independently causes DNA damage, quantify harm to a person, or establish a cancer treatment.
Understanding how radiation produces electrons in water may help improve models of damage pathways and could inform future research. The cited studies do not establish a clinical benefit or a therapy based on this process.
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