What is the primary reason for the lowering of vapor pressure in a solution?
Correct Answer: The presence of solute particles reduces the number of solvent molecules at the surface, leading to a lower vapor pressure.
- Step 1: Understand what vapor pressure is. It is the pressure exerted by the vapor of a liquid when it is in equilibrium with its liquid phase.
- Step 2: Know that a solution is made up of a solvent (the main liquid) and a solute (the substance dissolved in the solvent).
- Step 3: When you add solute particles to the solvent, they mix together.
- Step 4: The solute particles take up space at the surface of the liquid, where evaporation occurs.
- Step 5: Because there are solute particles at the surface, there are fewer solvent molecules available to escape into the vapor phase.
- Step 6: With fewer solvent molecules escaping, the vapor pressure of the solution is lower than that of the pure solvent.
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