Transcription
All right, four terms to briefly review on this slide. Um, so the first is the idea of a solvent. This, a solvent is the liquid that dissolves something. So here, we're talking about water as the solvent.
The next term is solute. Solutes are the things that are dissolved. So here, for example, here salt is the solute. And on the other side, this diagram, this giant purple protein molecule is the solute. In both situations, the solvent is water. Water's over here, water's over here. So this water is the solvent, but the solute is the stuff that's being dissolved or surrounded by water.
And when you do that, when you, when you dissolve a solute in a solvent, you make a solution. So, for example, the ocean is a solution of salt in water. So a solution is when you have, um, solutes dissolved in, in a solvent.
Specifically, when water is the solvent, you can call the solution aqueous. This is a special term, um, that talks about solutions where water is the solvent. And that's basically most of biology. Most of biology happens in an aqueous or a watery solution. So other examples: blood is an aqueous solution, a bunch of stuff floating in water. Kool-aid, coffee, tea, these are aqueous solutions, things dissolved in water.
There are solution solutions that are not aqueous. For example, if you dissolve something in acetone, like nail polish, there's no water involved there. Acetone is the solvent, the nail polish is the solute, but it's not an aqueous solution. It's just a solution in, in acetone. So aqueous is a special word that we, we reserve to talk to describe solutions where water is the solvent.