Question

Which solvent shows significant $NaCl$ solubility?

Answer 1

Solubility in general terms is defined as the amount of solute dissolved in per litre of the solvent. In chemistry, solutes which have the same nature as that of the solvent are soluble in the solvent. This simple fact is derived from the basic principle of chemistry.

Complete step-by-step answer:
To find out the solvent firstly let us see the nature of the solute $\left( NaCl \right)$. We know that in $NaCl$ $Na$ and $Cl$ have a very large difference of electronegativity. As a result, chlorine which is more electronegative than the sodium atom, will attract the electrons of sodium towards itself. As a result, sodium will develop partial positive charge $N{{a}^{+}}$and chlorine will develop partial negative charge $C{{l}^{-}}$.

Such compounds in which opposite charges get developed due to electronegativity difference, are called polar compounds. Water is also a polar compound as it can dissociate into ${{H}^{+}}\,and\,O{{H}^{-}}$ions.

Now we know that in chemistry there is a famous principle which states that ‘’ Like dissolves Like’’. From this principle we can interpret that a solute will dissolve fairly in the solvent of its own type. Therefore, sodium chloride $NaCl$ being a polar compound is dissolved fairly in the polar solvent water.
We can also say that sodium chloride will not only dissolve in water, but it will dissolve on all the polar solvents. Few examples of polar solvents are methanol, formic acid, glycerol, glycol etc.

Note: Polar solute can only dissolve in polar solvent and not in non-polar solvents. One more reason apart from the one discussed above is that there is nothing to keep the polar and nonpolar molecules near each other due to the absence of attraction forces among them or their ions.