Humboldt State University ® Department of Chemistry

Richard A. Paselk

Chem 107

Fundamentals of Chemistry

Fall 2008

Lecture Notes: 21 October

© R. Paselk 2005
 
     
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Particles, Moles and Mass, cont.

Masses and particles Examples, cont.

 

Solution Concentrations

Solutions: a solution occurs when one chemical is completely dissolved or dispersed in another. We most commonly think of solutions as being liquid, but solid solutions also occur, such as the various metal alloys like steel, brass and bronze.

In a solution the substance present in highest concentration is considered to be the solvent, while components in lesser amounts are considered to be solutes. If you dissolve a sugar cube in water you get a sugar solution, where water is the solvent, and sugar is the solute.

Example:

Concentration Terms:

Molarity:

The most commonly used concentration term in chemistry is molarity, M = 1 mole of solute dissolved in 1 L of solvent.

Chemical Reactions

I'm not terribly interested in the classification system given in your text in Chapter 10. Though one does occasionally run into some of these terms, you don't have to worry about them for this course.

Instead, I want to look at reactions from the perspective of what is happening at the atomic and molecular levels where reactions occur because of the associations of ions and molecules with each other to form precipitates and complexes, or atoms and/or molecules exchange electrons in oxidation/reduction or redox reactions.

Ionic reactions - dissolving and precipitates

Much of the chemistry around us involves the dissolution of ionic solids in water to give aqueous solutions and the precipitation of ions from aqueous solution to give precipitates (solids). So what I would like to do first is to look a little at the process of dissolving and the nature of aqueous solutions. This means I will be talking about stuff that is discussed in your book in later chapters (13 & 14).

First we need to look a bit a water itself. (models, overhead) The thing we need to keep in mind is that the ions in water are not independent - they dissolve because they substitute interactions with water molecules for interactions with counter ions. And they stay in solution because they are insulated from each other by the water "shells" around each ion. A couple of corollaries

Let's consider some chemical processes:

Na+(aq) + Cl-(aq) + Ag+(aq) + NO3-(aq)  AgCl(s) + Na+(aq) + NO3-(aq)

Net Ionic Equations

Notice that two ions don't change, so why show them. Instead we write a net ionic equation:

 Ag+ + Cl- AgCl(s)

Notice the ions that appeared on both sides are not shown (in mathematical terms they canceled)

Ba2+(aq) + 2 Cl-(aq) + 2 K+(aq) + SO42-  BaSO4(s) + 2 K+(aq) + 2 Cl- (aq)

Again, we want to write a net ionic equation showing only the ions which reacted:

Ba2+ + SO42-  BaSO4 (s)

Notice that net ionic equations are very general expressions. Essentially they are saying that any time we have these species present they will react, regardless of what else happens to be there! (Sometimes folks are confused when they add ions which should react and they don't. This is usually a case where something else reacted first, so the ions of interest really weren't there!).


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Last modified 21 October 2008