Doing chemistry under water?

Aquatic races are usually assumed to be stunted in technological development by the inability to create fire or forge metals.

But what about doing chemistry at all?

The development of chemistry in human history seems to hinge on being able to perform reactions in aqueous solution. That's convenient for us because water is abundant, lots of natural chemistry (including biochemistry) occurs in aqueous solution, and you can store dry materials and get them to react only when you want them to by dissolving them, or by mixing solutions that have been stored in separate containers.

Underwater, where your entire "atmosphere" is an aqueous solution, many of those conveniences go away. Storing dry materials is much harder, as is keeping pre-prepared solutions separate, as they are liable to diffuse into your equivalent of "air".

However, it seems to me that there are analogs for how we do chemistry that would work under water. After all, we can do a lot chemistry with gasses, which must be carefully stored in sealed containers lest they "dissolve" in our atmosphere. Thus, given the ability to construct suitable containers, an underwater civilization ought to be able to do chemistry with separately-stored aqueous solutions and other miscible liquids just like we do with gasses. Additionally, perhaps they could do chemical reactions in non-aqueous solution--say, by storing "dry" ingredients that get dissolved in oil bubbles to perform reactions.

So, am I on the right track there? Despite lacking access to fire, and being entirely enveloped in aqueous solution, could an underwater civilization nevertheless develop significant knowledge of chemistry and chemical engineering technologies? And if so, what might that developmental path end up looking like?

posted almost 5 years ago

Logan R. Kearsley‭

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