Nuclear quantum effects (NQEs) strongly influence water dynamics, yet their magnitude and environmental tunability in biologically relevant systems remain poorly quantified. Using dielectric spectroscopy and calorimetry on H2O, D2O, and H218O, we show that substituting 16O with 18O causes only a small (∼5%) mass-induced slowdown in both bulk water and supercooled solutions, confirming that H2O and H218O exhibit identical quantum behavior. In bulk liquid water at 290 K, the relaxation-time ratio is ρ = τD2O/τH2O ≈ 1.3, consistent with quantum simulations attributing this difference to NQEs. At supercooled temperatures (200 K), the isotope ratio ρ increases moderately to ≈2 in neutral poly(vinyl methyl ether) solutions, and reaches ≈4 for fast-water relaxation in basic lysine solutions, revealing a 3-fold enhancement of NQEs. These findings demonstrate that biological environments can amplify the magnitude of NQEs on water dynamics, with implications for biochemistry and quantum-accurate aqueous modeling.
Melillo et al. (2026) studied this question.