ElectrolyteAn electrolyte is a substance that conducts electricity through the movement of ions, but not through the movement of electrons. This includes most soluble salts, acids, and bases, dissolved in a polar solvent like water. Upon dissolving, the substance separates into cations and anions, which disperse uniformly throughout the solvent. Solid-state electrolytes also exist. In medicine and sometimes in chemistry, the term electrolyte refers to the substance that is dissolved.
Molar concentrationMolar concentration (also called amount-of-substance concentration or molarity) is the number of moles of solute per liter of solution. Specifically, it is a measure of the concentration of a chemical species, in particular, of a solute in a solution, in terms of amount of substance per unit volume of solution.
Solution (chemistry)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. When, as is often but not necessarily the case, the sum of the mole fractions of solutes is small compared with unity, the solution is called a dilute solution."
SolubilityExample of a dissolved solid (left)Formation of crystals in a 4.2 Mammonium sulfate solution. The solution was initially prepared at 20 °C and then stored for 2 days at 4 °C.In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a substance, the solute, to form a solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of the solute to form such a solution.
Salt (chemistry)In chemistry, a salt or ionic compound is a chemical compound consisting of an assembly of positively charged ions (cations) and negatively charged ions (anions), which results in a compound with no net electric charge. The constituent ions are held together by electrostatic forces termed ionic bonds. The component ions in a salt can be either inorganic, such as chloride (Cl), or organic, such as acetate (CH3COO).
ConcentrationIn chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: mass concentration, molar concentration, number concentration, and volume concentration. The concentration can refer to any kind of chemical mixture, but most frequently refers to solutes and solvents in solutions.
Dissociation constantIn chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacology, a dissociation constant (KD) is a specific type of equilibrium constant that measures the propensity of a larger object to separate (dissociate) reversibly into smaller components, as when a complex falls apart into its component molecules, or when a salt splits up into its component ions. The dissociation constant is the inverse of the association constant.
MolalityIn chemistry, molality is a measure of the amount of solute in a solution relative to a given mass of solvent. This contrasts with the definition of molarity which is based on a given volume of solution. A commonly used unit for molality is moles of solute per kilogramsolvent (mol/kg). A solution of concentration 1 mol/kg is often written as 1 molal (or 1 m).
IonAn ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convention. The net charge of an ion is not zero because its total number of electrons is unequal to its total number of protons.
Gilbert N. LewisGilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a dean of the college of chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond and his concept of electron pairs; his Lewis dot structures and other contributions to valence bond theory have shaped modern theories of chemical bonding.
Dissociation (chemistry)Dissociation in chemistry is a general process in which molecules (or ionic compounds such as salts, or complexes) separate or split into other things such as atoms, ions, or radicals, usually in a reversible manner. For instance, when an acid dissolves in water, a covalent bond between an electronegative atom and a hydrogen atom is broken by heterolytic fission, which gives a proton (H+) and a negative ion. Dissociation is the opposite of association or recombination.
Chemical compoundA chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound. A compound can be transformed into a different substance by a chemical reaction, which may involve interactions with other substances.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.