Let me expand on the concept of water based electricity or protricity and how and why it occurs in water.
Water has an unusually high melting and boiling point for a molecule so light. It is an anomaly of nature. If we compare methane; CH4, ammonia; NH3, water; H2O, and hydrogen fluoride; HF, they all have the same mass or weight per molecule. However, the boiling points, which reflect how self bonded each is, shows a boiling point of -161C for methane, -33C for ammonia, +100C for water and +19C for hydrogen fluoride, even though ammonia, water and hydrogen fluoride all form hydrogen bonds. Water's very high boiling point is way too high for its size, if we draw a line between for these four similar light weight molecules. This is one of the 70 anomalies of water; bucks the trends in other materials.
The reason for this anomaly, is water has two hydrogen bonding hydrogen and two electron pairs for sharing with other water molecules. This allows for up to four hydrogen bonds per water molecule. Ammonia has three hydrogen for hydrogen bonding but and just 1 pair of electrons to share, while hydrogen fluoride has the opposite or one hydrogen bonding hydrogen and three pairs of electrons to share. Water has the perfect balance needed to form extended connections in 3-D, rather than just dimers and trimers like ammonia and hydrogen fluoride.
Water, at the level of hydrogen bonding, is loosely analogous to carbon. Water can secondary bond with up to four entities forming polymers in 3-D. Unlike carbon, where the four bonds are covalent and more or less fixed, the hydrogen bonds of water are more fluid in terms of change and rearranging. This is ideal for smart assembly and the conduction of protricity.
Protricity does not hurt like electricity, because it is slower; hydrogen proton is heavier and slower than an electron; 1837 times more mass. Protricity has a much softer touch, that allows delicate rearrangement of itself and the organics of life, at the nanoscale. With there being 100 times as many water molecules, in a cell, compared to all other molecules combined, water dominates the second bonding arena; smart matrix for protricity.
Since water self binds so strongly, when pure, the foundational assembly of just pure water molecules, is defined as having an activity coefficient =1; by convention. As we add things into pure water, the activity decreases, all the way to an activity coefficient=0. This is water's range of smart wiring, the goal of the wring is to maximize the water's activity as close to 1 as possible by wiring other things to cooperate.
Hydrogen bonding, in general, and in water, in particular, is a very strong secondary bonding force and its maximization within the water leads to the lowest system free energy and leads to the highest residual activity. Any lowering of activity adds free energy to the water and makes it rewire, but in a way to maintain or increase the global activity as high as possible. Essentially water will wire any dissolved moieties and contact surfaces to maximize itself Water is the big fish in this pond and the rest of the little fish need to adapt; water shape shifting the little fish to optimize the wiring and aqueous activity.
One basic example, to better understand self forming water circuits; hydration, is the system of water and oil. If we take olive oil and water and shake we will get an emulsion; lots of small bubbles of both the water and oil. This creates surface tension. We added energy by shaking or agitating, and have placed the system of water and oil into a higher energy state, with the activity of the water driven to way below 1.0. The water is tied up at all the surface area of all the thousands of bubbles. The global 3-D matrix of water will now work to increase the activity again.
If we wait, the oil and water bubbles, will start to coalesce, each its kind, here and there, until we end up with two layers. With the surface contact area with water and oil now minimized, the activity of the water increases back toward 1. Water is the big fish and oil is the school of little fish, due to their comparative liquid state self bonding energies. The needs of water come first and it rewires the emulsion and the oil will follow water's lead, since the oils only uses many van Der Waals bonds, which are much weaker. Oil actually benefits by surface contact with water, but water becomes the big loser, so the big fish takes this back; increases its own activity coefficient. The term hydrophobic is a misnomer since oil does not fear water, other than water will not share for very long, since water is so narcissistic.
If were go back to an emulsion with thousands of tiny bubbles, the surface
tension implies stretching instead of compression. Stretching and surface tension in water has to due with the covalent side of the hydrogen bonding binary switch. The covalent bonds stretch out to allow the magnetic overlap of covalent bonding orbitals. Polar is more about change attraction and the compression side of the switch. Pure water has a higher ratio of polar to covalent switches, in the natural state. The oil-water interfaces, by making water touch the oil, messes up the lowest energy state of the water-water binding, and causes the water to assume more of the expanded hydrogen bonding covalent switch setting, since these are more stable at the level of enthalpy; enthalpy offset for the oil surface contact.
The net effects is the emulsion causes water to lose stability, which water tries to compensate with the lower enthalpy covalent switch setting; surface tension. The problem is the surface tension and covalent setting causes water to become too structured, thereby lowering the water entropy; less complex. Water gains one way, but a potential forms in the second law; entropic potential. Water now needs to get away from the covalent switch setting and back to more polar switches; second law driven phase separation. It is a matter of time before the water and oil have to separate; until the entropic potential is gone. Surfactants can cause an emulsion to form with water and oil; suntan lotion. But the second law will eventually break the emulsion; expiration date.
This basic analysis is useful in terms of packing proteins; driven by lowering the surface tension of water to increase entropy. Some proteins are designed to allow residual entropic potential to remain within the water wiring. The protein-water complex wires its self for cyclic catalytic free energy; enzyme.
Let me give a more complex example of progressive smart wiring; series of packing and folding protein wiring steps to become part of an active water-organic complex, wired into the global water; protricity. Below tops is a diagram of a protein, hot off the press; mRNA translation, being surround by water and then folded and packed. The water begin being hydrate the open protein; starts to wire, and then optimizes the wiring; entropy increase for higher complexity of function. This increases the water activity. We end with a more complex version of water and oil.
The two diagrams above are called energy landscape diagrams. The reflects the energy that the protein creates in water. The first is connected to the starting protein, all stretched out, with the peaks, the various amino acids along the protein chain exposed to the water. The higher peaks create more surface tension. The second is the folded and packed protein that has been optimized to the water; maximizes water activity with in the global matrix. This is the final wiring diagram.
Unlike a water and simple oil emulsion, where there are more than just two different molecules. This situation is more complex with the different amino acid groups, like attached bubbles of different solvents with different impacts on water, thereby setting urgency; packing priority or folding and packing order. The deep blue represent groups that stabilize the water better than water can do for itself.
The light blue on the right bottom, in the finished protein, appears to be connected to what is called cooperative hydrogen bonding. This is similar to a resonance structure of hydrogen bonding. It is loosely similar to a hydrogen bonding version of benzene. It has many covalent switches, which lower the entropy; more order is induced in the cooperative water. However, cooperative water is very stabilizing in terms of enthalpy; internal energy. It is a unique state of hydrogen bonding, used for storing enzymatic entropic energy. The gain in enthalpy allows entropic potential to be stored; low entropy is possible if enthalpy is dominant. Cooperative hydrogen bonding has the unique property of the first bond cut, no matter where it is in the cooperative, being the strongest bond. This reflects the resonance or group sharing; electrons and protons connections appear to be equal everywhere in the cooperative; all equally strong.
One theoretical way to tap into this stored free energy; entropic potential energy, of the cooperative aqueous hydrogen bonding, is ATP. ATP is used by many enzymes and structural protein, to add catalytic energy for their reactions and actions. The ATP adds or attaches a phosphate group to the enzyme or structural protein, It then picks up a water molecule to forms ADP. The ADP and phosphate are then recycled.
Theoretically, if the water needed to form ADP from ATP was pulled, anywhere the water cooperative; ATP would cut hardest first bond in the cooperative. The impact would similar to a run in a nylon stocking under tension; burst effect as cooperative surface tension relaxes. This could break the cooperative, and create a sudden rise in local entropy; energy vacuum (endothermic entropy increase) that can assistance the enzymatic effect. The net effect would ATP plus the water cooperative, for push and pull up the energy hill. The cooperative wiring would then reset; enthalpy lowers, ready for the next cycle.