A weak electrolyte is a chemical that doesn’t dissolve or decompose in water and is a poor conductor of electricity. Weak electrolytes ionize only slightly in water and produce few ions. Distinguishing a weak electrolyte from a strong one is not simple. Most organic acids and their salts, as well as salts of organic bases, are weak electrolytes. Nonelectrolytes are substances that do not ionize in aqueous solution and do not conduct electricity. Understanding electrolytes is important in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and medical trials.
A weak electrolyte is a type of chemical that doesn’t dissolve or decompose in water and is a poor conductor of electricity, if it doesn’t conduct electricity at all. The term “electrolyte” has a specific scientific and medical meaning, but is most commonly understood to mean any form of salt that carries an electrical charge. Electrolytes help people maintain balanced body chemistry and are also useful in a number of manufacturing and industrial settings. Saying an electrolyte is “weak” is usually a statement about the breakdown of its ionic charges and allows researchers to predict how it will react in a given solution or under certain circumstances. A strong electrolyte is usually fully ionized in water and yields equal numbers of cations, or positively charged ions, and anions, or negatively charged ions. An electrolyte classified as “weak,” on the other hand, will ionize only slightly in water and produce few ions, so these solutions are poor conductors of electricity.
Evaluation of electrolytic strength
The electrolytic strength of a substance can generally be determined by measuring the electrical conductance of a solution of the substance at known concentration. Tables are available listing the Qsp or ionic constant of many substances, which is a measure of their degree of ionization.
Distinguishing a weak electrolyte from a strong one simply by examining its chemical formula is not that simple. Weak compounds are usually composed of covalent bonds or chemical bonds where electrons are shared by two atoms. A strong electrolyte will have at least one ionic bond, where electrons from one atom are transferred to another to produce two ions which are then held together by electrostatic forces. Most chemical bonds have both ionic and covalent character, however, some knowledge of chemistry is required to make a reasonable estimate of a compound’s electrolytic strength.
In general, however, most organic acids and their salts, as well as salts of organic bases, are electrolyte weak. A substance with low solubility in water can also be classified as weak. It is important to note, however, that from a technical standpoint, solubility is not the same as electrolytic strength.
Ionization in water
Pure water by itself is not a good conductor of electricity, and distilled or deionized water, from which all ions have been removed, does not conduct an electric current easily. However, if a strong electrolyte such as table salt, NaCl, is added, the salt will dissolve to give Na+ and Cl- ions. Na+ is able to accept electrons from the negative pole of the power source while Cl- will carry electrons to the positive pole, resulting in a net flow of electricity through the solution. The more salt you add, the more conductive the solution will be, up to saturation.
In a weak electrolyte, this dissociation into ions occurs only to a small extent, typically much less than 10%. Most of the weak electrolyte remains in its original unionized form in solution. In such cases, the ions present are insufficient to carry an electric current.
Understanding the non-electrolytes
In addition to weak and strong electrolytes, nonelectrolytes are substances that do not ionize to any appreciable extent in aqueous solution, and their solutions do not conduct electricity at all. Most organic substances, unless they contain an acidic or basic functionality, are non-conductive and therefore non-electrolytes. Sugar and alcohol, for example, are organic compounds with no acid or basic functionality and therefore do not produce ions in solution.
Practical applications
Understanding the different ways substances chemically bond and react is important to most manufacturing disciplines, and quickly identifying and isolating electrolytes based on strength is an important part of many different chemical reactions. Chemists and researchers often use this kind of knowledge in any number of different experiments and tests to achieve the right balance between acids and bases. This is critical to many pharmaceutical manufacturing businesses and medical trials, but it also has implications for things like engineered food chemistry and the compounding of household chemicals and even beauty products.
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