5: Solutions
- Page ID
- 329759
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Solutions play a very important role in many biological, laboratory, and industrial applications of chemistry. Of particular importance are solutions involving substances dissolved in water, or aqueous solutions. Solutions represent equilibrium systems, and the lessons learned in our last unit will be of particular importance again. Quantitative measurements of solutions are another key component of this unit. Solutions can involve all physical states - gases dissolved in gases (the air around us), solids dissolved in solids (metal alloys), liquids dissolved in solids (amalgams - liquid mercury dissolved in another metal such as silver, tin or copper). In this unit we will almost exclusively be concerned with aqueous solutions - substances dissolved in water.
- 5.1: Aqueous Solutions and Solubility - Compounds Dissolved in Water
- When ionic compounds dissolve in water, the ions in the solid separate and disperse uniformly throughout the solution because water molecules surround and solvate the ions, reducing the strong electrostatic forces between them. This process represents a physical change known as dissociation. Under most conditions, ionic compounds will dissociate nearly completely when dissolved, and so they are classified as strong electrolytes.
- 5.2: Precipitation Reactions
- A precipitation reaction is a reaction that yields an insoluble product—a precipitate—when two solutions are mixed. Thus precipitation reactions are a subclass of exchange reactions that occur between ionic compounds when one of the products is insoluble. Because both components of each compound change partners, such reactions are sometimes called double-displacement reactions.
- 5.3: Writing Chemical Equations for Reactions in Solution- Molecular, Complete Ionic, and Net Ionic Equations
- Precipitation is a process in which a solute separates from a supersaturated solution. In a chemical laboratory it usually refers to a solid crystallizing from a liquid solution, but in weather reports it applies to liquid or solid water separating from supersaturated air.
- 5.4: Solution Concentration- Molarity
- Another way of expressing concentration is to give the number of moles of solute per unit volume of solution. Of all the quantitative measures of concentration, molarity is the one used most frequently by chemists. Molarity is defined as the number of moles of solute per liter of solution. The symbol for molarity is MM or moles/liter. Chemists also use square brackets to indicate a reference to the molarity of a substance.
- 5.5: Solution Dilution
- We are often concerned with how much solute is dissolved in a given amount of solution. We will begin our discussion of solution concentration with two related and relative terms - dilute and concentrated.
- 5.6: Solution Stoichiometry
- Double replacement reactions involve the reaction between ionic compounds in solution and, in the course of the reaction, the ions in the two reacting compounds are “switched” (they replace each other). Because these reactions occur in aqueous solution, we can use the concept of molarity to directly calculate the number of moles of reactants or products that will be formed, and hence their amounts (i.e. volume of solutions or mass of precipitates).