Question

The hydrolysis of Aluminium carbide gives:
A) Methane
B) Ethane
C) Ethene
D) Propane

Answer 1

Hint: The hydrolysis is a chemical reaction in which the molecule of water is added to the reactant species. This process of hydrolysis makes the reactant molecule split into parts. The molecular formula of carbide is $A{l_4}{C_3}$ and one can try to write the balanced chemical reaction to determine the products.

Complete step by step answer:
1) First of all we will try to understand the concept of the hydrolysis process. Hydrolysis is a chemical process which involves the addition of water molecules in the reactant molecule. This addition of water molecule into reactant molecule makes the splitting of both the water molecule and the reactant molecule in the reaction.
2) Now let us try to write a balanced reaction equation for the hydrolysis of Aluminium carbide based on the above observations as below,
$A{l_4}{C_{3(s)}} + 12{H_2}{O_{(l)}}\xrightarrow{{}}4Al{\left( {OH} \right)_{3(s)}} + 4C{H_{3(g)}} \uparrow $
In the above reaction the reactant Aluminium carbide gets hydrolyzed by the twelve molecules of water and gives the products as three molecules of Aluminium hydroxide which is a precipitate and four molecules of methane gas which evolves during the reaction.
3) In the above reaction the reactant molecule Aluminium carbide and water molecule both get split in their molecules and form the products as per hydrolysis process.
Therefore, the hydrolysis of Aluminium carbide gives methane which shows option A as the correct choice of answer.

Note:
In the hydrolysis the target reactant’s one fragment part molecule gets hydrogen ion or hydroxide ion. An ester on undergoing hydrolysis gives the product as carboxylic acid. Hydrolysis processes can also be reverses of a condensation reaction in which water molecules get eliminated.