Water solvent action, Chapter

Water, it may be recalled (Chapters 2 and 4), has two modes of solvent action, depending on the nature of the added electrolyte. The water can contact an ionic crystal (e.g., NaCl), detach the ions from the lattice through the operation of ion-dipole (or ion-quadrupole) forces, and convert them to hydrated ions (Chapter 2). 

The success of the single parameter Grunwald-Winstein equation is largely due to the limited range of solvent change such as variation of composition of mixtures. When different solvent types are employed extra terms are needed in the equation to fit the data. Solvolysis reactions in aliphatic nucleophilic substitution involve nucleophilic attack of the solvent and it is unlikely that solvents of different structure would have similar nucleophilicities excepting those in a series of mixed solvents such as ethanol-water (Chapter 2). The simplest treatment involves dividing the solvent action into nucleophilic and electrophilic components as shown in Equation (32). 

If the substance shared between two solvents can exist in different molecular states in them, the simple distribution law is no longer valid. The experiments of Berthelot and Jungfleiscli, and the thermodynamic deduction show, however, that the distribution law holds for each molecular state separately. Thus, if benzoic acid is shared between water and benzene, the partition coefficient is not constant for all concentrations, but diminishes with increasing concentration in the aqueous layer. This is a consequence of the existence of the acid in benzene chiefly as double molecules (C6H5COOH)2, and if the amount of unpolymerised acid is calculated by the law of mass action (see Chapter XIII.) it is found to be in a constant ratio to that in the aqueous layer, independently of the concentration (cf. Nernst, Theoretical Chemistry, 2nd Eng. trans., 486 Die Verteilnngssatz, W. Hertz, Ahrens h annulling, Stuttgart, 1909). 

The above conceptual and operational pH definitions for solutions in non-aqueous and mixed solvents are very similar to those for aqueous solutions [16]. At present, pH values are available for the RVS and some primary standards in the mixtures between water and eight organic solvents (see 5 in Section 6.2) [17]. If a reliable pH standard is available for the solvent under study, the pH can be determined with a pH meter and a glass electrode, just as in aqueous solutions. However, in order to apply the IUPAC method to the solutions in neat organic solvents or water-poor mixed solvents, there are still some problems to be solved. One of them is that it is difficult to get the RVS in such solvents, because (i) the solubility of KHPh is not enough and (ii) the buffer action of KHPh is too low in solutions of an aprotic nature [18].8) Another problem is that the response of the glass electrode is often very slow in non-aqueous solvents,9 although this has been considerably improved by the use of pH-ISFETs [19]. Practical pH measurements in non-aqueous solutions and their applications are discussed in Chapter 6. 

Phospholipase A2 Action. Incubation of phosphatidylserine with phospholipase A2 obtained from Crotalus adamanteus or Naja Naja snake venom will show that the serine-containing phosphoglyceride was smoothly and completely converted to a lysophosphatidylserine with liberation of 1 mol of fatty acid per mole of lipid P. The experimental procedure was the same as the one described before in this and in the previous chapter. The products of the reaction can be recovered by thin-layer chromatography on Whatman K6 plates in a solvent system of chloroform-acetone-methanol-acetic acid-water (4.5 2 1 1.3 0.5, v/v). 

The nature of the solvent used in reactions often has a profound effect on how the reaction proceeds. Often we are limited in our choice of solvent by the solubilities of the reactants and products—this can also be to our advantage when trying to separate products, for example, in ether extractions. We have seen so far in this chapter that THF is a good solvent for lithiations because it coordinates to Li, that water is a good solvent for hydrolyses of carboxylic acids because it is a reagent and because it dissolves the carboxylate anion, and that alcohols are a good solvents in reactions such as transesterifications where mass action is needed to drive equilibria over towards products. 

The infiuence of water on the reaction between ammonia and hydrogen chloride to form ammonium chloride may be taken up in the same way. Although very little is known of the way the water actually catalyzes the formation of ammonium chloride, the reaction considered in Chapter IV in the formation of tetraethylammonium iodide from triethyl amine and ethyl iodide in the presence of different solvents indicated the method of action of the catalyst. It was found that unsaturation of the solvent paralleled to a certain extent the increase in the velocity of the reaction. Ability to form addition compounds, intermediate or otherwise, seemed to be the controlling factor. Unfortunately, the composition of the intermediate addition compound is not so definite in the present case. In order... 

This poorer performance is often attributable to the lack of cleaning action of water in removing contaminants on the substrate surface, compared to that of organic solvents, again emphasizing the interaction between the choice of substrate surface pretreatment and that of the adhesive which was noted in the previous chapter. 

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