FACTORS AFFECTING THE RATE OF DISSOLVING

How quickly a substance dissolves in a solvent is unknown. A teaspoon of

table sugar will dissolve rapidly in a hot drink. The same amount of sugar
will take much more time to dissolve in a glass of ice water. Similarly, table
salt dissolves rapidly in water at room temperature. Large pieces of salt, like
those used in home water softeners, dissolve much more slowly, which
makes this type of salt ideal for use over long periods. The rate of dissolving
is affected by three main factors:
1.

Stirring

2.

Temperature

3.

Particle Size

Stirring
Stirring a solution increases the rate at which a solute dissolves in a solvent.
For example, you may have tried to make a soft drink by dissolving flavor
crystals in a pitcher of water. The flavor crystals are the solute and water is
the solvent. If the package of flavor crystals is poured into the water,
dissolving begins, but clumps of powder may remain. To speed up the
process, you probably used a spoon to stir the water with the flavour
crystals. This results in a more uniform arrangement of flavor crystals and
water particles makes dissolving occur more quickly. You can actually see the
flavour crystals being stirred until they dissolve in the water. The end result
is a solution, as all parts of the soft drink mixture look the same.

Temperature
Temperature affects the speed at which particles move. Particles move more
rapidly at higher temperatures, as heat is transferred by the movement of
the particles. Since the rate of dissolving depends on solute particles
bumping into solvent particles, when the particles move more rapidly, more
solvent and solute particles will bump into one another. In addition, the
solvent particles at the edge of a piece of solute will more rapidly carry away
the solute particles that they meet. This will quickly spread the solute
particles throughout the solvent. With increasing temperature, most solutes
dissolve more rapidly in most solvents. This explains, for example, why a
teaspoon of sugar dissolves more quickly in a cup of hot tea then in a glass
of iced tea.

Particle Size
Particle size also affects the rate of dissolving. Large particles take longer to
dissolve than smaller particles of the same substance. For example, sugar
cubes dissolve more slowly than granular sugar, and rock salt dissolves more
slowly than table salt. Solvent particles must bump into solute particles for
dissolving to occur. Particles of a solvent will contact solute particles at the
surface of a clump or crystal of solute particles. Therefore, large pieces of a
solute must be broken apart to enable solvent particles to come in contact
with solute particles.

Pressure
For condensed phases (solids and liquids), the pressure dependence of solubility
is typically weak and usually neglected in practice. Assuming an ideal solution,
the dependence can be quantified as:
where the index i iterates the components, Ni is the mole fraction of the
ith component in the solution, P is the pressure, the index T refers to constant
temperature, Vi,aq is the partial molar volume of the ith component in the
solution, Vi,cr is the partial molar volume of the ith component in the dissolving
solid, and R is the universal gas constant[9].
The pressure dependence of solubility does occasionally have practical
significance. For example,precipitation fouling of oil fields and wells by
calcium sulfate (which decreases its solubility with decreasing pressure) can
result in decreased productivity with time.