How would you rank compounds from highest to lowest solubility: ethanol, hexanol, butanol?
1 Answer
Apr 30, 2017
If you mean how soluble they are in water, then the order is ethanol< butanol< hexanol.
Explanation:
Because water is polar , molecules that are non-polar have a lower solubility when in water.
(This is why oil and water don't mix. Oil is non-polar).
As you increase the number of carbons in each of these carbon chains, the molecule becomes more non-polar.
So because hexanol has 6 carbons and ethanol only has 2, hexanol has the lowest solubility.
