Question

Write a balanced chemical equation for dissolving liquid CH3OH in water.

How do you represent the phases of the different compounds?

Answer 1

A balanced equation for dissoving liquid CH₃OH in water is shown below

CH₃OH + H₂O CO + 3H₂

This process is known as steam reforming in which carbon monoxide, hydrogen or other useful products are formed from hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas. This is achieved in a processing device called a reformer which reacts with steam at high temperature with the fossil fuel.

To repesent phases of different compounds:

A pure substance may exist as either of a phase namely vapor, liquid or solid under equilibrium conditions, depending upon the temperature and pressure. A phase is defined as a homogeneous portion of a system that has uniform physical and chemical characteristics i.e. it is a physically distinct from other phases, chemically homogeneous and mechanically separable portion of a system. For pure substance there is only one liquid phase, however there may be more than one solid phase because of differences in crystal structure. A liquid solution is also a single phase, even as a liquid mixture (e.g. oil and water) forms two phases as there is no mixing at the molecular level. In the solid state, different chemical compositions and/or crystal structures are possible so a solid may consist of several phases. For the same composition, different crystal structures represent different phases. A solid solution has atoms mixed at atomic level thus it represents a single phase. A single-phase system is termed as homogeneous, and systems composed of two or more phases are termed as mixtures or heterogeneous. The different phases of a system under equilibrium is depiced by phase diagram. It represent the relationships between temperature and the compositions and the quantities of phases at equilibrium. A phase diagram also indicates equilibrium solid solubility of one element/compound in another. It also indicate temperature at which a substance starts to solidify and the range of solidification. It indicate the temperature at which different phases start to melt. The amount of each phase in a two-phase mixture can also be obtained by phase diagram..