Polar Protic Solvents
Polar protic solvents are often used to dissolve salts. In general, these solvents have high dielectric constants and high polarity.
Common characteristics of protic solvents :
- solvents display hydrogen bonding
- solvents have an acidic hydrogen (although they may be very weak acids such as ethanol)
- solvents dissolve salts
- cations by unshared free electron pairs
- anions by hydrogen bonding
Examples include water, most alcohols, formic acid, hydrogen fluoride, and ammonia. Polar protic solvents are favorable for SN1 reactions, while polar aprotic solvents are favorable for SN2 reactions.
Read more about this topic: Protic
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