Most biochemical reactions occur in aqueous environments, meaning that these reaction occur in water. Seeing as these biochemical reactions involve organic molecules, the interaction of water with these molecules have to be taken into account. You see, water reacts differently between polar/ionic molecules and non-polar molecules. Ionic and polar molecules have their bonds easily interrupted by water and individual atoms/ions end up surrounded by water molecules. In contrast, water molecules cannot disrupt non-polar bonds and so surround entire molecules. This leads to the clumping of non-polar molecules. Separate clumps of non-polar molecules tend to aggregate due to the stability achieved when water molecules are most entropic. To limit the the amount of water molecules surrounding individual non-polar molecules, all non-polar molecules in the aqueous environment are clumped together. This is referred to as the hydrophobic effect. It plays an important role in protein folding and structure formation.
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