Skip to main content

Solubility

 In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a substance, the solute, to form a solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of a solute to form such solution.

The extent of the solubility of a substance in a specific solvent is generally measured as the concentration of the solute in a saturated solution, one in which no more solute can be dissolved. At this point, the two substances are said to be at solubility equilibrium. For some solutes and solvents, there may be no such limit, in which case the two substances are said to be "miscible in all proportions" (or just "miscible").



The solute can be a solid, or a liquid, or a gas, while the solvent is usually solid or liquid. Both may be pure substances, or may themselves be solutions. Gases are always miscible in all proportions, except in very extreme situations, and a solid and liquid can be "dissolved" in a gas only by passing into the gaseous state first.

The solubility mainly depends on the composition of solute and solvent (including their pH and the presence of other dissolved substances) as well as on temperature and pressure. The dependancy can often be explained in terms of interactions between particles (atoms, molecules, or ions) of the two substances, and of thermodynamic concepts such as enthalpy and entropy.

Under certain conditions, the concentration of the solute can exceed its usual solubility limit. The result is a supersaturated solution, which is metastable and will rapidly exclude the excess solute if a suitable nucleation site appears.

The concept of solubility does not apply when there is an irreversible chemical reaction between the two substances, such as the reaction of calcium hydroxide with hydrochloric acid, even though one might say, informally, that one "dissolved" the other. The solubility is also not the same as the rate of solution, which is how fast a solid solute dissolves in a liquid solvent. This property depends on many other valuables, such as the physical form of the two substances and the manner and intensity of mixing.

The concept and measure of solubility are extremely important in many sciences besides chemistry, such as geology, biology, physics, and oceanography, as well as in engineering, medicine, agriculture and even in non-technical activities like painting, cleaning, cooking, and brewing. Most chemical reactions of scientific, industrial, or practical interest only happen after the reagents have been dissolved in a suitable solvent. Water is by far the most common example of such solvent.

The term "soluble" is sometimes used for materials that can form colloidal suspensions of very fine solid particles in a liquid. The quantitative solubility of such substances is generally not well-defined, however.

x----------x

The post is sponsored by Fendi male watch.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Create a Richly Imagined World

For someone who likes fantasy and sci-fi fiction, most of the time, a lot of people ask me about how to create a richly imagined world. Fantasy and sci-fi elements rest heavily on how an author weave the setting and the world in which the heroes dwell in, and it helps to make the novel to be imagined vividly in the readers' minds. A convincing world should be relatable, something that we can associate ourselves with. For us to be associated with a world an author created in his mind, and wrote on the pages of a book, this world has to be close to the real thing. It has to be systematic, real and alive, and very convincing. A real world has certain elements, and an author must consider them in writing a vividly imagined world: Cartography - a fantasy or sci-fi world depend heavily on geography and maps, especially if the plot requires war and the belligerents occupy so much space in the plot. A convincing world has the world separated in territories, and every part of the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Simple Machine

A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force. Usually the term refers to the six classical simple machines that were defined by Renaissance scientists: Lever Wheel and axle Pulley Inclined plane Wedge Screw A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single work load. Ignoring friction losses, the work done on the load is equal to the work done by the applied force. The machine can increase the amount of the output force, at the cost of a proportional decrease in the distance moved by the load. The ratio of the output to the applied force is called the mechanical advantage. Simple machines can be regarded as the elementary "building blocks" of which all more complicated machines (sometimes called compound machines) are composed. For example, wheels, levers, and pulleys are all use...
Post a Comment
Read more

Theodicy

Theodicy means vindication of God. It is to answer the question why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the evidential problem of evil by attempting "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in this world." Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy attempts to provide a framework where God's existence is also plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work Théodecée, through various responses to the problem of evil that had been previously proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the history of moral theodicy in his 1966 work, Evil and the Love of God, identifying three major traditions: the Plotinian theodicy, named a...
Post a Comment
Read more