(Solved) Review of the HCL dissociation in water reaction. Tendency of H30+

BigBuck92

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9 years ago

Review of the HCL dissociation in water reaction. Tendency of H30+

When HCL is placed in water complete dissociation takes place.

Eventually at the conclusion of the dissociation the products are:
H+ + Cl- + H20
because H+ combines with OH- reducing the OH- concentration.
So in this product why doesn't Cl- recombine with H+?
I believe the answer is because H20 attracts the H+ ion more than Cl- yielding:
H30+ + Cl- + H20
Why is that? In so many words Cl– does not desire the proton to the same level as H2O desires the proton. That is fine. What is the measure for this tendency to attract an additional proton? Electropositivity, maybe? I searched google for the electropositivity of water and found nothing. Should I evaluated the lack of electronegativity and consider that electopositivity? According to cha cha the electronegativity of water is 1.2 . The electronegativity of Cl– is 3.0. Is this why the reaction proceeds the way that it does?

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habiba

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9 years ago

The equation HCl Rightwards Arrow

H+ + Cl- is misleading. The term that HCl 'dissociates' in water actually doesn't mean that suddenly HCl molecule breaks into H+ and Cl-. What actually happens is that HCl reacts with water. Since water is considered to be strong base when compared to HCl, what really happens is HCl + H2O Rightwards Arrow

[H3O+][Cl-] and this reaction is an exothermal reaction; that's why when you dilute HCl with water, the you'll notice that the reaction will release some heat, making the glass slightly warmer.

Since in the past time the most common solvent used in chemistry was water, the definition of acid was also used relatively to water (bronsted acidity concept), and in many cases, people started to leave out the complete reaction equation and shortened it with HCl Rightwards Arrow

H+ + Cl-. Keep in mind that what really happens is the reaction between HCl and water, and NOT self-breaking covalent bond of HCl.

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BigBuck92 Author

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9 years ago

So in this product why doesn't Cl- recombine with H+?

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bio_man

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Review of the HCL dissociation in water reaction. Tendency of H30+

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