chemistry help please!!!!?

Question

why don't tap water, C2CH5Oh, HC2H3O2, NH4O, and NaCl conduct a lot of electricity?
also, what is an electrolyte?????

Answer 1

Are you sure they don't? NaCl (salt) and water make a good conductor by themselves, but maybe the other stuff locks up the ions, and wreck the conductivity.

Answer 2

All your molecular compounds do not have very mobile electrons (as in metals); electrons are localized to molecular orbitals that hold them in place, typically in the neighborhood of two adjacent atoms. An ionic substance like NaCl, under normal conditions, is a solid, and again, no charged particles can move around (the ions are held rigidly in the crystal lattice, and electrons stay very firmly associated with their ions). If you heated NaCl to it's melting point, it actually will conduct. A weak acid like acetic acid (CH3COOH) does not dissociate to a very great extent, so the number ions available that would mediate conduction is low. Ammonium hydroxide (NH3OH) does not exist in the pure state as such; it would be NH3 in an aqueous solution, and like acetic acid, is a weak base, and does not produce a lot of ions. Both the ammonia and acetic acid will have an appreciable conductivity, but nothing approaching that of metals, because the ions, in order to conduct, will have to move (rather sluggishly) through a liquid with a rather high dielectric constant (which dampens an applied electric field -- this is high in insulators).

An electrolyte is a substance, which when added to a solution, increases the conductance of the solution. It does this by increasing the number of ions in the solution. (This is something you could have looked up in your textbook).

Answer 3

A substance or solution will conduct electricity well if it is either a metal-like compound with delocalized electron bands or if it contains ions which are free to move.

Tap water contains miniscule amounts of different ions, so it conducts electricity slightly.

C2H5OH, ethanol, ionizes only very slightly (it is a very weak acid), so it conducts electricity hardly at all.

HC2H3O2 ionizes, but it is a weak acid, so only about 1% of the molecules are ionized. Not a lot of ions are present, so it conducts electricity weakly.

NH4O should be NH4OH, I think - ammonium hydroxide. It is a weak base, because most of it exists as NH3 + H2O instead of NH4+ + OH-, so not a lot of ions are present.

NaCl in the solid state is made up completely of ions, but they are held in place by strong ionic forces and are not free to move.

An electrolyte is any substance which ionizes when dissolved in a solvent (typically water). HC2H3O2 is a weak electrolyte, as is NH4OH. HCl is a strong electrolyte, because it ionizes almost completely in water and conducts electricity well in aqueous solution.

Answer 4

A strong electrolyte has many ions in solution and therefore conducts much electricity. Weak electrolytes, like your examples, have few ions in solution and are poor conductors.
However, dissolved or molten NaCl does conduct electricity well.

Answer 5

not sure #1
electrolyte - a substance that seperates into two or more ions when dissolved in water