How does water's polar nature affect its ability to dissolve a variety of substances?
1 Answer
"Like dissolves like"
Explanation:
Many ionic substances dissolve in water because the polar water molecules will direct the negative oxygen pole toward positive ions on the edge of the crystal and pull them off the crystal. Similarly, the positive hydrogen pole of water molecules will be attracted to the negative ions on the edge of the crystal lattice and pull them into solution.
Ionic compounds dissociate in water meaning that their ionic bonds disappear. The separated ions are stabilized by water molecules surrounding them with oxygen atom of water molecules pointed toward positive ions and hydrogen end of water molecules pointed toward negative ions.
Polar molecules like sugar or ethanol will dissolve in the polar solvent water but they do not dissociate or produce ions, they simply mix uniformly with water molecules.
