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Making a saline water solution by dissolving table salt in water.The salt is the solute and the water the solvent. In chemistry, a solution is defined by IUPAC as "A liquid or solid phase containing more than one substance, when for convenience one (or more) substance, which is called the solvent, is treated differently from the other substances, which are called solutes.
[1] [2] As water is an excellent solvent and is also naturally abundant, it is a ubiquitous solvent in chemistry. Since water is frequently used as the solvent in experiments, the word solution refers to an aqueous solution, unless the solvent is specified. [3] [4] A non-aqueous solution is a solution in which the solvent is a liquid, but is ...
The solubility of a specific solute in a specific solvent is generally expressed as the concentration of a saturated solution of the two. [1] Any of the several ways of expressing concentration of solutions can be used, such as the mass, volume, or amount in moles of the solute for a specific mass, volume, or mole amount of the solvent or of the solution.
The surrounded solute particles then move away from the solid solute and out into the solution. Ions are surrounded by a concentric shell of solvent. Solvation is the process of reorganizing solvent and solute molecules into solvation complexes and involves bond formation, hydrogen bonding, and van der Waals forces. Solvation of a solute by ...
Most of the solute does not dissociate in a weak electrolyte, whereas in a strong electrolyte a higher ratio of solute dissociates to form free ions. A weak electrolyte is a substance whose solute exists in solution mostly in the form of molecules (which are said to be "undissociated"), with only a small fraction in the form of ions.
The following chart shows the solubility of various ionic compounds in water at 1 atm pressure and room temperature (approx. 25 °C, 298.15 K). "Soluble" means the ionic compound doesn't precipitate, while "slightly soluble" and "insoluble" mean that a solid will precipitate; "slightly soluble" compounds like calcium sulfate may require heat to precipitate.
Cosolvents improve solubility between non-miscible phases, as demonstrated by a solute dissolved in organic solvent but insoluble in water (left). A cosolvent miscible in both phases and able to dissolve the solute is added to form a homogeneous solution of water, organic solvent, and compound (right).
The Wikipedia article on Solution (chemistry) states, in the first paragraph, that a solution "is a special type of homogeneous mixture composed of two or more substances. In such a mixture, a solute is a substance dissolved in another substance, known as a solvent." One may also find solutions as the goal of equation solving.