Question #4670b
1 Answer
Apr 21, 2015
In general, insolubility comes about because the water molecule's dipole (+ -) is not strong enough to wrest the cations and anions away from the strongly bonded crystalline structure.
In the case of sodium chloride, the crystal lattice does not have enough bonding energy to overcome the dipole forces that are exerted by H2O's surrounding the crystals. Big crystals dissolve slower because there's less contact than with small crystals (table salt).
