Can anyone please define what are Polar and Non polar solvents?
1 Answer
Explanation:
And thus a polar solvent is a solvent which possesses charge separation, and, maybe, the ability to
Water is the classic polar solvent, because the oxygen atom tends to polarize electron density towards itself, and denudes the bound hydrogens of electron density:
I am trying to think of some metric, something measurable, with which we can measure the polarity. Large molecular dipole moments and high dielectric constants are usually possessed by polar solvents (certainly by those solvents above). The hydroxyl group on the lower alcohols, methanol, and ethanol, confers some degree of polarity.
On the other hand, solvents composed of atoms that have small differences in electronegativity, e.g.