Why doesn salt dissolve in alcohol (propanone)?
First of all, propanone isn’t an alcohol, it’s a ketone. A ketone won’t dissolve salts at all, or very very little at best. Salt does dissolve a bit in alcohols, but not nearly as much as in water. Water forms smaller, more polarized molecules that stabilize ions very well. In other words, every Na+ ionis stabilized by six partially negative O’s from one end of H2O, and every Cl- ion is stabilized by twelve partially postivie H’s from the other end of H2O. Alcohols have negative O’s and a positive H, but they’re not as charged as those of H2O, and they have alkyl chains which “sterically hinder” solubilization, i.e. they take up room so not as many molecules can surround each ion. Salts will dissolve better in lower-molecular weight alcohols, and probably not at all in higher molecular weight alcohols.
