Thread: Solubility of Gases

I'm just wondering, if the solubility of the oxygen in blood were the same as in pure water, how would your life be different?

Well this is confusing, I didn't know gases were soluble. I thought soluble meant that it could be dissolved. And that only compound substances could be dissolved.

Though I did fail chemistry.

Originally Posted by PhDemon

As oxygen is much less soluble in water than in blood would your life even be possible...

sorry,i did not quite get what you mean, can you please explain..
why??
is the oxygen in blood greater than in pure water?

Originally Posted by seagypsy

Well this is confusing, I didn't know gases were soluble. I thought soluble meant that it could be dissolved. And that only compound substances could be dissolved.

Though I did fail chemistry.

I'm also surprised when my teacher teach it to us.
Her example that I understand was the can of soda, when you open a soda it fizzes because of the carbon dioxide gas that was dissolved in the liquid solution in the soda.

Originally Posted by PhDemon

Originally Posted by Gwiyomi17

Originally Posted by PhDemon

As oxygen is much less soluble in water than in blood would your life even be possible...

sorry,i did not quite get what you mean, can you please explain..
why??
is the oxygen in blood greater than in pure water?

Yes, much more oxygen dissolves in blood than in water. What I meant was that I don't think it would be possible to function if blood could only dissolve as much oxygen as water. For the answer to you question you need to think about how drastically reducing the amount of oxygen available to your bodies cells would affect your life...

Hmmm.. so I think I really need to read some biology.. I did not take biology this semester..
But I'm still confuse, why is it that more oxygen dissolves in blood than in water???

so it isn't solubility in the same sense that salt dissolves in water then? My teacher made distinctions between what a solution and what was a mixture. Using analogies such as kool-aid verses salad. In salad you can still see the separate "elements" and in kool-aid you cannot see the flavor crystals and sugar crystals floating freely in the water, they blend together.

Mind you I wasn't in a remedial class, she may have just been really dumbing it down for me. maybe she over dumbed it.

Originally Posted by seagypsy

*so it isn't solubility in the same sense that salt dissolves in water then? My teacher made distinctions between what a solution and what was a mixture. Using analogies such as kool-aid verses salad.* In salad you can still see the separate "elements" and in kool-aid you cannot see the flavor crystals and sugar crystals floating freely in the water, they blend together.

Mind you I wasn't in a remedial class, she may have just been really dumbing it down for me. maybe she over dumbed it.

*it is also solubility that salt dissolves in water, here you can check this to understand what is solubility: Solubility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , Solubility chart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
*I'm not sure if I'm correct,but there's are terms called homogenous mixture(mixture which you can only see one phase like kool-aid) and heterogeneous mixtures (mixture which you can see two or more phases like salad)

Originally Posted by Gwiyomi17

Originally Posted by seagypsy

*so it isn't solubility in the same sense that salt dissolves in water then? My teacher made distinctions between what a solution and what was a mixture. Using analogies such as kool-aid verses salad.* In salad you can still see the separate "elements" and in kool-aid you cannot see the flavor crystals and sugar crystals floating freely in the water, they blend together.

Mind you I wasn't in a remedial class, she may have just been really dumbing it down for me. maybe she over dumbed it.

*it is also solubility that salt dissolves in water, here you can check this to understand what is solubility: Solubility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , Solubility chart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
*I'm not sure if I'm correct,but there's are terms called homogenous mixture(mixture which you can only see one phase like kool-aid) and heterogeneous mixtures (mixture which you can see two or more phases like salad)

Well one thing she always said that I never could understand was that she said once something becomes a solution you cannot extract the dissolved substance from the liquid. But as far as I know that isn't always true. Salt-water is a solution yet we extract the salt quite easily by simple distillation. And distillation has been a process know for an extremely long time. I was probably wrong to do so but since she never clarified herself when I asked her about this conflict with my understanding I ended up tuning her out for the rest of the semester. Dropped chemistry the second semester and took adv biology, but then ended up dropping out in the first week of that semester. (long story there- saw first semester grades and after having been on the honor roll all my life F's gave me a total emotional breakdown)

Well one thing she always said that I never could understand was that she said once something becomes a solution you cannot extract the dissolved substance from the liquid.

That's just incomplete. It applies as long as pressure and temperature remain the same as when you arrived at that point. Change either or both and the solubility point changes.

Originally Posted by seagypsy

Originally Posted by Gwiyomi17

Originally Posted by seagypsy

*so it isn't solubility in the same sense that salt dissolves in water then? My teacher made distinctions between what a solution and what was a mixture. Using analogies such as kool-aid verses salad.* In salad you can still see the separate "elements" and in kool-aid you cannot see the flavor crystals and sugar crystals floating freely in the water, they blend together.

Mind you I wasn't in a remedial class, she may have just been really dumbing it down for me. maybe she over dumbed it.

*it is also solubility that salt dissolves in water, here you can check this to understand what is solubility: Solubility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia , Solubility chart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
*I'm not sure if I'm correct,but there's are terms called homogenous mixture(mixture which you can only see one phase like kool-aid) and heterogeneous mixtures (mixture which you can see two or more phases like salad)

Well one thing she always said that I never could understand was that she said once something becomes a solution you cannot extract the dissolved substance from the liquid. But as far as I know that isn't always true. Salt-water is a solution yet we extract the salt quite easily by simple distillation. And distillation has been a process know for an extremely long time. I was probably wrong to do so but since she never clarified herself when I asked her about this conflict with my understanding I ended up tuning her out for the rest of the semester. Dropped chemistry the second semester and took adv biology, but then ended up dropping out in the first week of that semester. (long story there- saw first semester grades and after having been on the honor roll all my life F's gave me a total emotional breakdown)

I know what you feel(even though we have different situations). I did everything to make my marks good but the teacher is so perfectionist which caused my marks to go down. Sometimes they don't clarify what they really mean.

It's sad when in 11th grade you are taking all advanced classes and the teachers assume you didn't learn anything in the fourth grade. Sometimes, I just think my 4th grade teacher totally rocked. He really loved science and would teach science based on what we asked him about. He felt curiosity was the best motivator to learning. When we finished learning about one topic he would ask us what we wanted to learn about next. And this was his way for nearly every subject.