Guided lesson

Solubility

4CH1-1.44CH1-1.5C4CH1-1.6C

2 guided lessons · 18 checks · 1. Principles of Chemistry → States of Matter

Guided lessons for this note

Which concept don't you understand yet?

We'll explain it simply and check your understanding. Pick any lesson — any order works.

0 of 18 checks correct so far

Lesson 1 of 2

Solubility

Stir sugar into tea and it seems to vanish, but chemists can say exactly how much will dissolve. Solubility is the measurement of how much of a substance dissolves in a given volume of liquid, expressed in grams per 100 grams of solvent. The substance doing the dissolving is the solvent; the solid that disappears into it is the solute.

What you know already

You already know from States of Matter that dissolving spreads one substance evenly through another, particle by particle. This note attaches numbers to that picture: solubility, measured in grams per 100 grams of solvent. It follows the number as temperature rises, compares how solids and gases behave differently, and draws the results as solubility curves you can read values from.

Key points of understanding

Solubility measures how much of a substance dissolves in a given volume of liquid.
The liquid that does the dissolving is called the solvent.
Solubility values are stated in grams per 100 grams of solvent.
Higher temperature makes most solids more soluble.
Gases dissolve better under high pressure but worse when warmed.
Different substances dissolve to different extents in the same solvent.

A graph to show the solubility curves of three different salts

Tell us your confidence level against the key points

Choose a confidence level to continue.

Prefer to read it all at once? Show the full lesson as a page

1.Solubility

4CH1-1.44CH1-1.5C

Key points

Solubility measures how much of a substance dissolves in a given volume of liquid.

Guided content from the SME authoring corpus — note rn_cTk2cs2h2BKQ3y3B, pinned at 96c261a3a06e · promoted SyllabAI/syllabai-resources e967e75f1339

Back to the revision note All revision notes

2.Solubility Curves

4CH1-1.6C

Plot how much of a salt dissolves in 100 grams of water at a series of temperatures, join the points, and you have a solubility curve. The curve answers practical questions at a glance: how much dissolves at any chosen temperature, how that changes when you warm or cool, and where one salt stands against another.