Solubility

[Charlene]

How do you tell if two substances are soluble with each other or not?

[James]

Simply, like dissolves like:

Polar solvent, polar solute= soluble

Non polar solvent, non polar solute= soluble

Polar solvent, non-polar solute (or vice versa)= insoluble

[Charlene]

What if you were given like two equations?
(some random examples...)
e.g. H2O and C8H18
e.g. HCl and C2H4O2
e.g. (NH4)2SO4 and H3PO4

[mith]

Well you would have to check for polarity, we had a thread here about that but I'm too lazy to dig it up. Use the search function.

[Charlene]

lazy... ~_~" lol...

[James]

Well, for H2O and C8H18, water is polar, alkanes are not, thus they will not be soluble in one another.

[Charlene]

really?? oh good good... I just completed this quiz for chemistry and I put that as soluble with each other~~~ This other guy who sat next to me had a contradictory answer as me and he's smart... that's freaking me out... (he put it as not soluble) lol...

The first one was all I remember from the quiz, the rest were made up off the spot =p