Acetone, CH3COCH3, is a nonelectrolyte; hypochlorous acid, HClO, is a weak electrolyte; and ammonium chloride, NH4Cl, is a strong electrolyte.
Part A
What solute particles are present in an aqueous solution of CH3COCH3?
Express your answer as a chemical expression. If there is more than one answer, separate them by a comma.

Question

Acetone, CH3COCH3, is a nonelectrolyte; hypochlorous acid, HClO, is a weak electrolyte; and ammonium chloride, NH4Cl, is a strong electrolyte.
Part A
What solute particles are present in an aqueous solution of CH3COCH3?
Express your answer as a chemical expression. If there is more than one answer, separate them by a comma.

anonymous · Answer

How do I figure out solute particles?

anonymous · Answer

@Cuanchi ?! Can you help??

australopithecus · Answer

Well,

acetone does go through tautomerization to form an enole

anonymous · Answer

This is what I'm starting to understand, basically you look at the solubility chart to understand if it dissociates completely or not. So since NH4Cl is a strong electrolyte so it completely dissolves
Acetone is a non electrolyte so it stays the same, right? Like it stays whole and doesn't dissolve in water.

anonymous · Answer

Since HClO is weak that means it partially separates soooo it's HClO, H^+ and ClO^-?

australopithecus · Answer

Essentially an electrolyte is something that ionizes in solution,

so if you put NaCl into water

it is going to completely dissociate into Na+ and Cl- ions

australopithecus · Answer

You are on the right track, as for acetone it is not really an electrolyte, although it will tautomerize it will predominately remain the keto form, not that this is important for answering your question and is way beyond the scope I would assume. http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/ @api/deki/files/2933/image007.png?revision=1 Anyways you could just say that the acetone would solely exist as a compound it would not ionize

anonymous · Answer

haha yeah the word tautomerize makes my head implode...

australopithecus · Answer

How good an electrolyte is is based on its ability to ionize in solution.

So HCl which is a strong acid and good electrolite will completely ionize into H+ and Cl- in water
HF which is a weak acid will only partially dissociate into H+ and F- there will be some HF that is still together and not ionized
Acetone will not really dissociate and will just remain acetone

anonymous · Answer

Oh okay, that makes sense.

australopithecus · Answer

although it switches between isomers, if you ever take organic chemistry 2 in university you will likely learn about tautomerization.

anonymous · Answer

Hopefully I don't have to take that much chemistry haha, thank you!