Isopropyl alcohol (polar, contains and OH group) dissolves into which of the following?

6 Answers

• Well if it makes you feel any better your answers would have been the same as mine and I have been doing chemistry for quite some time.

• I’d tend to agree with you. And look at the dielectric constants, which is a measure of polarity:

  H2O = ======= 78.5

  Acetone = ==== 20.7

  Methanol = ==== 32.6

  Isopropanol = == 18.3

  Ethanol = ===== 24.6

  ___________________

  CCl4 ======== 2.24

  Toluene ====== 2.38

  Hexane ====== 1.89

  You can clearly observe the two blocks. It must be some ‘stupid’ exception. Remember that isopropanol also has some “apolar” regions, with all the CH2 and CH3 around. In the end you should ask: what do you mean by soluble ? How much should be dissolved in 100g, or a kg, for a substance be considered “soluble” in the other ?

  I just believe this is a BAD question, trying to explore the exception instead of the general rule (which is what should be expected from students at the early stages of their learning of a subject)

  Source(s): Check these references, quite good ones:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvent

  http://organicdivision.org/organic_solvents.html

• Acetone should be excluded from your list.

  Water

  Methanol

  Ethanol

  are all polar and have the same “OH” part as the alcohol.

• “like dissolves like” and ionic solutions

• Correct answers:

  *Ethanol (CH3CH2OH)

  *Water (H2O)

  *Methanol (CH3OH)

  Source(s): Mastering Chemistry and Blake’s answer

• ethanol isn’t one