chemistry

[Light]

Why can nitrogen dissolve in water when it has triple bonds,highly unreactive and non polar ?Why does oxygen can dissolve in water too with double bonds and also non polar?I thought dissolving involves the formation of the hydrogen bond in water,but no hydrogen bonds in nitrogen,oxygen or cabon dioxide.   If non polar molecules like O2,N2,CO2, can dissolve in water ,why cant hydrogen dissolve then?If nitrogen can dissolve in water ,then we will be inhaling nitrogen and exhaled part of nitrogen(perhaps 1-2%) in form of water vapour.Why?

[nid404]

The first thing to remember  Hydrogen bonds form between Hydrogen and an electronegative element such as nitrogen,oxygen or fluorine. The bond is covalent

http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/212inorganic.html
this should help

[Light]

U din answer my question.yes,i know hydrogen bonds is  hydrogen with FON element.but oxygen do not have hydrogen atom so by right no hydrogen bonds and by right cant dissolve in water.But in experiment, oxygen DOES dissolves in water so does carbon dioxide and nitrogen but not hydrogen.you cant use the concept of polarity here cause water is polar but CO2 and N2 are non polar.Covalent bond has not really contributed to dissolving properties ,if not how u explain nitrogen molecule with triple bond dissolves?triple bond is very strong and makes the molecules unreactive because of that.so why the contradicting dissolving propreties?


P.s. I dont like vague answers.

[nid404]

I'll try my best so that you understand. If you found my answer vague, I'm sorry my help was of no use

Yeah so the mechanism is something like this...I will use O2 as an example

A polar molecule such as water can induce a dipole in non-polar molecules which do not have a permanent dipole. The electron cloud of an isolated O₂ molecule is symmetrically distributed between the the two oxygen atoms. As the negative end of the polar water molecule approaches, the electron cloud in O2 gets distorted. In this process, O2 molecules in itself becomes polar; that a dipole is induced in the otherwise non-polar oxygen molecule. So the H2O and O2 molecule are now attracted, albeit weakly. So oxygen dissolves in water due to the attraction between the polar water molecule and the induced dipole in oxygen. This is dipole/induced dipole interactions.

Anything more, please go ahead. I will try and see to it that my answers match your level.

[Light]

ok thanks.i understand already.

[astarmathsandphysics]

This is why water is a good solvent - because it is polar.

[nid404]

ok thanks.i understand already.

so u understood this before I posted my answer. You could've have mentioned it before....I wouldn't have taken so much pains to type this down...

Next time if you have gotten the answer before someone has posted it in, please delete the topic or atleast let others know. It kinda wastes our time if u haven't benfitted from our post. I had to actually frame the thing for u, I'm not a teacher, so to make others understand, I have to word my answer in a particular way which consumes a lot of time.

Thanks