University of the Philippines Manila

Effect of Nature of Solute and Solvent to Solubility

Submitted by: Jessa E. Flores

Submitted to: Regatha Antonio

Topic: Factors affecting Solubility

A solution is a homogeneous mixture of two or more pure substances. It is composed of the solute, the one that is chemically active and generally the one with lesser quantity, and the solvent which is of greater and amount and the phase followed. The solubility of any substance in a solvent refers to the maximum quantity that can be dissolved in a definite amount of solvent at a certain temperature. There are several factors that affects solubility and those are the nature of solute and solvent, the pressure, and the temperature. This experiment is limited/focuses on how the nature of solute and solvent affects solubility. Nature of the components pertains to the polarity of the molecules that causes them to bear their own characteristics and properties. For the study, copper sulfate (CuSO4), sucrose (C12H22O11), cooking oil, and iodine crystals (I2) were used as solutes. Each solute was separately dissolved/mixed into three different solvents: water (H2O), ethyl alcohol (C2H2OH), and hexane (C6H14). The solutions were vigorously shaken and were then observed. The observations from the experiment were tabulated: Solute Copper Sulfate Sucrose Cooking Oil Iodine Crystal Water Completely dissolved Completely dissolved Immiscible Not dissolved Solvent Ethyl Alcohol Slightly dissolved Slightly dissolved Slightly miscible Slightly dissolved Hexane Not dissolved Not dissolved Completely miscible Completely dissolved

The natures of the solvent are as follows: Water, which is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, is a known highly polar molecule due to its capability of forming a hydrogen bond with other molecules (i.e., another water molecule). On the other hand,

Topic: Factors affecting Solubility

ethyl alcohol is a short carbon chain with a hydroxyl group (OH-). Molecules bearing hydroxyl groups are generally polar molecules however, due to the shortness of ethyl alcohols carbon chain; some of its non polar properties were remained (making it relatively less polar compare to water). Lastly, hexane, which is made up of six-carbon chain (no functional groups are involved) is a non polar molecule. Firstly, copper sulfate is an ionic salt and thus can be dissolved into polar substances such as water while it was slightly dissolved in ethyl alcohol since it was a weak polar molecule. On the opposite, it was not dissolved in hexane since hexane is a non polar molecule. Second, sucrose also followed the trend of the previous, copper sulfate. Sucrose is a sugar and is naturally soluble to water. Again, it was insoluble to hexane since hexane is a non polar molecule. Next is cooking oil. It was immiscible (special term of solubility for liquid solute) with water and ethyl alcohol but miscible with hexane. Iodine crystal was the same as cooking oil as it was dissolved in hexane but not on the other two. The reason behind this was because both cooking oil and iodine crystals were non polar molecules and were thus attracted to polar solvents. Likes dissolve likes. It is the principle that simplifies how the nature of solute and solvent affects solubility. Polar solute will be easily dissolved to polar solvent and same goes for non polar solute to non polar solvent. On the other, when the components are different from each other (being one as polar and one as non polar), they will hardly mix or will not mix at all. Therefore, to dissolve a certain solute, a solvent with the same polarity as it has must be used.