When sugar dissolves in water, the two substances appear as one. The sugar particles can no longer be identified. However, the taste of the water proves that the sugar was not lost after mixing. Its chemical property is retained, and so the water tastes sweet. What kind of solution is this?
A. Solid in liquid B. Solid in solid C. Liquid in liquid D. Gas in liquid
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is A. Solid in liquid.
When sugar dissolves in water, the sugar molecules are evenly distributed throughout the water, forming a homogeneous mixture known as a solution. This occurs when the water molecules surround and interact with the sugar molecules, pulling them into the solution. In this case, sugar is the solid solute, and water is the liquid solvent.
In a solid-in-liquid solution, the solid (sugar) dissolves and breaks into individual molecules or ions that are uniformly dispersed in the liquid (water). Although the sugar particles are no longer visible to the naked eye, their chemical properties, such as sweetness, remain intact. This allows the water to taste sweet, even though the sugar is not physically present in its original form. The process of dissolution does not involve a chemical change but rather a physical one, where the solid sugar is uniformly distributed in the liquid water.
Such solutions are called homogeneous because the composition of the solution is the same throughout. A key characteristic of solutions like this is that they cannot easily be separated by simple physical methods like filtration, as the solid particles are completely dissolved in the liquid.
In other types of solutions, like solid in solid (option B), the solute and solvent are both in the solid phase, such as in alloys (for example, bronze, which is a mixture of copper and tin). A liquid in liquid solution (option C) occurs when one liquid dissolves in another, such as in alcohol and water. A gas in liquid solution (option D) is when a gas is dissolved in a liquid, such as carbon dioxide in carbonated water. However, in this case, sugar dissolving in water fits the solid in liquid category.