Question

Question #6fc31

Answer 1

Are you asking how common salt dissolves in water.......?

Explanation:

In the solid state of sodium chloride, `Na^+Cl^-`, each metal cation is surrounded by 6 chloride anions in an octahedral array. And each chloride anion is surrounded by 6 metal cations in an octahedral array. The 1:1 stoichiometry of `NaCl` makes this a necessity.

However, in solution, the metal cations can be solvated by 4-6 water molecules, to give a so-called ion-dipole complex. That is, while we write `NaCl(aq)` or `Na^+`, the actual species in solution is likely `[Na(OH_2)_6]^+` in which the aqua ligands are quite labile. And likewise the chloride anion is solvated by the positive end of the water dipole, i.e. `stackrel(delta^+)H-stackrel(delta^-)O-stackrel(delta^+)H`.