Aqueous Solutions and Heats of Hydration

Ionic solutes are held together by attractive interactions called Coulombic forces.

When ionic solutes are dissolved in water, the hydrogen bonds between the water molecules break and disrupt the Coulombic forces between the ions.

Breaking up an ionic crystal lattice into its constituent ions in this manner requires a large energy input and, thus, the enthalpy of the solute is an endothermic process.

The energy released when one mole of ionic solid is formed from the constituent gaseous ions is called the lattice energy and is always exothermic. Thus, the enthalpy to break one mole of the solute into its components is equal and opposite to the lattice energy.

However, when an ionic lattice is broken in an aqueous solution, each ion is surrounded and stabilized through ion-dipole interactions with the oppositely charged end of the water dipole.

This phenomenon is called hydration. The enthalpy change associated with the dissolution of one mole of ions in water is known as the heat of hydration. It is a combination of the enthalpy of the solvent and the enthalpy of mixing.

Since the ion-dipole interactions between a hydrated ion and the water molecules are much stronger than the hydr