Introduction

The objective of this lab is to study various types of electrolytes and their conductivity in
addition to their relations with acid/base.

Chemical Responsibility
Some of the chemicals that are in this lab are toxic. For example, NH3 is toxic, corrosive
and may cause permanent fogging of soft contact lenses. Also, throughout the entire
lab, there is a hazard of electrical shock. Make sure to not touch any parts of the
apparatus that may carry electrical current and wear safety glasses at all times.

Sample Calculations
None required for this particular lab.

Discussion
Not knowing what exactly to write about, I became curious why certain compounds
dissociate completely in water and act as a strong electrolyte. Here is the findings of my
quick search. First notion to keep in mind is the difference between dissolution and
ionization. Dissolution is simply the mixing of two phases to produce a single
homogeneous phase. Ionization is a process by which a substance with no net charge
is converted into one or more ions. And naturally, an electrolyte is any compound that
ionizes when dissolved in a given solution I would like to use three molecules to portray
my findings: NaCl, acetic acid and glucose. The reason why I chose these molecules is
because they dissolve readily in water, but only two of them are electrolytes. For the
case of NaCl, each of its constituent individual ions (Na+, Cl-) become surrounded by
water molecules when the NaCl crystal is dissolved in water. These water molecules
inhibit oppositely charged ions from approaching one another closely enough to form
ionic bonds. Each water molecule has a permanent dipole, meaning that one end is
always slightly positively charged and the other end is always slightly negatively
charged. The charged ends of the water molecules are so strongly attracted to the
charged ions in the salt crystal that the water destroys the solid lattice structure of the
salt and each Na and Cl ion becomes surrounded by a layer of sticky water molecules.

CH3COOH also dissolves readily in water, but isn’t an ionic compound. Because it's a
weak acid, it exists in this equilibrium in solution:

Because it can lose a proton to form ions, it does ionize in solution and is thus an
electrolyte, but because it's a weak acid, the reaction doesn't go to completion and
some CH3COOH exists in solution making acetic acid a weak electrolyte as it doesn't
completely ionize in solution.

Finally, glucose readily dissolves in acid, but none of its protons are readily lost so it
doesn't ionize at all meaning that it isn't an electrolyte in water. Without getting too much
into the thermodynamics of dissolution, the reason glucose is so soluble is because the
many hydroxyl groups allow it to hydrogen bond extensively with water.

Conclusions
Different substances have different conductivity when dissolved in water, which is
closely related to ionization. The magnitude of ionization of a substance largely depends
on its structure.