Electrolyte/Nonelectrolyte

A nonelectrolyte such as glucose will dissolve in water as intact molecules. Thus if we weighed out 1 mole of glucose and dissolved it in a liter of water we would have a 1 molar glucose solution. On the other hand, when an electrolyte such as NaCl dissolves in water it will ionize to form two types of particles, Na⁺ ions and Cl^- ions. If we dissolved 1 mole of NaCl in 1 liter of water the solution would be 1 molar in both Na⁺ ions and Cl^- ions. But if we dissolved 1 mole of K₂SO₄ in 1 liter of water it would ionize to form 2 moles of K⁺ ions and 1mole of SO₄^2- ion. The resultant solution would be 2 molar in K⁺ ions and 1 molar in SO₄^2- ions.

Top