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Topic: Conc. in solutions  (Read 2092 times)

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Offline curiouscat

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Conc. in solutions
« on: April 21, 2015, 04:47:29 AM »
When someone says he has a solution containing 0.1 M NaCl & 0.1 M KBr does it equivalently mean the solution could be described as containing 0.1 M KCl & 0.1 M NaBr?

i.e. In solutions is the conc. of the ions themselves the only canonical description?



Offline Dan

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Re: Conc. in solutions
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2015, 06:04:55 AM »
Yes, they would be identical. I suppose the way it is written refers to the actual salts used to make up the solution.
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Offline Corribus

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Re: Conc. in solutions
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2015, 10:13:43 AM »
When someone says he has a solution containing 0.1 M NaCl & 0.1 M KBr does it equivalently mean the solution could be described as containing 0.1 M KCl & 0.1 M NaBr?
Although it is generally understood what this means, it's technically incorrect - you actually have no (or very little) NaCl or KBr (or KCl or NaBr) in solution. What you have is 0.1 M K+, 0.1 M Cl-, etc. But this would be linguistically cumbersome. So, I think your equivalence holds, at least as far as conventional semantics goes. Obviously this becomes more problematic for salts with limited solubility, e.g., AgCl instead of NaCl.
What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?  - Richard P. Feynman

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