Question
Question: Do colligative properties depend on the nature of the solvent?...
Do colligative properties depend on the nature of the solvent?
Solution
Colligative properties are those properties which solely depend on the ratio of number of solute particles to that of the solvent. But, this thing is only true for ideal solutions and not for the solutions that exist in nature.
Complete answer:
Ideal solution is a solution which shows zero enthalpy, zero change in volume, follows Raoult's law, has the same exerting pressure on each other, etc. Ideal solutions do not exist in nature, but solutions close to ideal solutions can be formed.
Some examples of colligative property include molality, molarity, normality, etc. These properties solely depend on the ratio of number of solute particles to number of solvent particles, but only for ideal solutions.
Thus, for ideal solutions colligative properties do not depend on the nature of solvent. But, real solutions somewhat depend on the nature of solvent and solute both.
For the sake of simplicity, during the calculations of colligative properties in labs and lower level works, the solution is often taken as ideal so that colligative properties only depend on the number of particles and not the nature.
The answer to this question is no, colligative properties do not depend on the nature of solvent, but this is true for ideal solutions only.
Note:
Very dilute solutions such as toluene and benzene, bromobenzene and chlorobenzene are approximately considered as ideal solutions. In fact colligative properties are studied mostly for dilute solutions only, whose behavior is approximated similar to that of ideal solutions. Colligative properties also include relative lowering of vapour pressure, elevation in boiling point, depression in freezing point and osmotic pressure.