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What do you mean by supersaturated solution ? How is it obtained?

What do you mean by supersaturated solution ? How is it obtained?

Grade:10

3 Answers

Suraj Prasad IIT Patna
askIITians Faculty 286 Points
9 years ago
Supersaturation is a state of a solution that contains more of the dissolved material than could be dissolved by the solvent under normal circumstances. It can also refer to a vapor of a compound that has a higher (partial) pressure than the vapor pressure of that compound.
Raheema Javed
156 Points
9 years ago
A supersaturated solution is one where there are more particles or solutes than solvent in the solution.Have you ever received a glass of kool aid that was not sweet enough? What do you do? You add sugar of course - but how much sugar can you add to your kool aid?The kool aid's main ingredient is water, also known as the solvent in this solution. It can only hold so much sugar, also known as the solute in the solution, before it becomes saturated. So the kool aid would be saturated when no more sugar dissolves in the water. So how can you make a supersaturated kool aid solution? Well, you would have to heat the solution because temperature increases the amount of sugar that will dissolve in the kool aid. Then, of course, you would have hot kool aid and I'm not sure that would taste very good.

Now let's discuss how all this happens!

Solutes, Solutions, and Polarity

A solution is made up of two parts - solutes and a solvent. The solvent part of the solution is usually a liquid but can be a gas. In fact, most of the time the solvent is water - thus water is known as the 'universal solvent'.

The definition of a solute concentration is the amount of solutes/particles that are dissolved in a solution. So would an unsaturated solution be able to have more solutes dissolved in the solution? The answer is yes. Just like the not sweet enough kool aid example above.

Now let's define solubility. This is defined as the ability of a solute to be dissolved in a solvent. If the solute is small it can be dissolved quicker in a solvent. Sugar is small, so it dissolves quickly in the kool aid.

Next is the definition of the rate of solution. It is defined as the time it takes to dissolve the solute in the solvent. How does this dissolving happen? We will have to get a little more technical to explain this action.

Each molecule in the solute and solvent are made up of electrons. Electrons are the negative charged parts of a atom. The unequal sharing of electrons creates polarity. The molecular structure of a substance, and how the structure breaks down, has to do with the polarity. A substance can have a polar or non-polar nature.
shubham sharda
360 Points
8 years ago
  When there is too much solute in a solution that it can't hold more. 

For example, when you have lemonade and you add sugar and the sugar won't dissolve, the solution (lemonade) has too much sugar (the solute) absorbed and it can't dissolve more.

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