Question

Hydrogen is _______soluble in water.
A ) sparingly
B ) highly
C ) moderately
D ) none of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Use the principle of ‘like dissolves like’. Determine the nature (polar or nonpolar) of hydrogen and water.

Complete answer:
> Hydrogen gas is highly explosive in nature. When hydrogen is mixed, even with small amounts of air, it can ignite. Hydrogen is flammable gas.
> Water is a polar compound and hydrogen is a non polar compound. In water, hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms are present. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms have significant electronegativity differences. Due to this, bonds in water are polar. In the case of a hydrogen molecule, two hydrogen atoms have zero electronegativity. So in a hydrogen molecule, the bond is nonpolar.
> Based on the principle of ‘like dissolves like’ polar solvent water will dissolve polar solutes such as sugar, sodium chloride etc and non polar organic solvents should dissolve non polar solute such as hydrogen.
> Hydrogen is sparingly soluble in water. Practically, hydrogen has little, if any, solubility in water.

Hence, the correct option is option A ) sparingly.

Additional Information When in a chemical reaction, hydrogen gas is generated, it is collected in an inverted measuring cylinder by using water displacement method. This method can be used for collecting hydrogen gas generated as hydrogen gas is sparingly soluble in water.

Note: Although both hydrogen molecules and oxygen contain atoms of hydrogen, two compounds are significantly different in their physical and chemical properties. Hence, it will be wrong to expect that hydrogen will be moderately or highly soluble in water as both hydrogen molecule and water molecule contain hydrogen atoms.