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Factors Affecting Electrolytic Conductance

The conductance of an electrolyte depends on three main factors: 1) The nature of the electrolyte - strong electrolytes dissociate completely into ions and have high conductance, while weak electrolytes only partially dissociate and have lower conductance. 2) The concentration of the solution - molar conductance generally increases with dilution as it reduces inter-ionic forces between ions. 3) Temperature - conductivity increases with higher temperatures.

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558 views2 pages

Factors Affecting Electrolytic Conductance

The conductance of an electrolyte depends on three main factors: 1) The nature of the electrolyte - strong electrolytes dissociate completely into ions and have high conductance, while weak electrolytes only partially dissociate and have lower conductance. 2) The concentration of the solution - molar conductance generally increases with dilution as it reduces inter-ionic forces between ions. 3) Temperature - conductivity increases with higher temperatures.

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bewildered-escapist-4301
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FACTORS AFFECTING ELECTROLYTIC CONDUCTANCE

In general, conductance of an electrolyte depends upon the following factors,

(1) Nature of electrolyte : The conductance of an electrolyte depends upon the number of ions present
in the solution. Therefore, the greater the number of ions in the solution the greater is the conductance.
The number of ions produced by an electrolyte depends upon its nature. The strong electrolytes
dissociate almost completely into ions in solutions and, therefore, their solutions have high conductance.
On the other hand, weak electrolytes, dissociate to only small extents and give lesser number of ions.
Therefore, the solutions of weak electrolytes have low conductance. 

(2) Concentration of the solution : The molar conductance of electrolytic solution varies with the
concentration of the electrolyte. In general, the molar conductance of an electrolyte increases with
decrease in concentration or increase in dilution.

The molar conductance of strong electrolyte (HCl, KCl, KNO 3)  as well as weak electrolytes
( CH3COOH.NH4OH) increase with decrease in concentration or increase in dilution. The variation is
however different for strong and weak electrolytes.

The variation of molar conductance with concentration can be explained on the basis of conducting ability
of ions for weak and strong electrolytes.

For weak electrolytes the variation of Λ with dilution can be explained on the bases of number of ions in
solution. The number of ions furnished by an electrolyte in solution depends upon the degree of
dissociation with dilution. With the increase in dilution, the degree of dissociation increases and as a
result molar conductance increases. The limiting value of molar conductance (Λ 0)  corresponds to degree
of dissociation equal to 1 i.e., the whole of the electrolyte dissociates.

Thus, the degree of dissociation can be calculated at any concentration as,

 α = Λc/Λ0

Where α is the degree of dissociation,


 
Λc is the molar conductance at concentration C and

Λ0 is the molar conductance at infinite dilution.

For strong electrolytes, there is no increase in the number of ions with dilution because strong
electrolytes are completely ionised in solution at all concentrations (By definition). However, in
concentrated solutions of strong electrolytes there are strong forces of attraction between the ions of
opposite charges called inter-ionic forces. Due to these inter-ionic forces the conducting ability of the ions
is less in concentrated solutions. With dilution, the ions become far apart from one another and inter-ionic
forces decrease. As a result, molar conductivity increases with dilution. When the concentration of the
solution becomes very-very low, the inter-ionic attractions become negligible and the molar conductance
approaches the limiting value called molar conductance at infinite dilution. This value is characteristic of
each electrolyte.

(3) Temperature : The conductivity of an electrolyte depends upon the temperature. With increase in
temperature, the conductivity of an electrolyte increases.
 
Migration of ions

Electricity is carried out through the solution of an electrolyte by migration of ions. Therefore,

(1) Ions move toward oppositely charged electrodes at different speeds.

(2) During electrolysis, ions are discharged or liberated in equivalent amounts at the two electrodes, no
matter what their relative speed is.

(3) Concentration of the electrolyte changes around the electrode due to difference in the speed of the
ions.

(4) Loss of concentration around any electrode is proportional to the speed of the ion that moves away
from the electrode, so

Loss around anode/Loss around cathode = Speed of cation/Speed of anion

The relation is valid only when the discharged ions do not react with atoms of the electrodes. But when
the ions combine with the material of the electrode, the concentration around the electrode shows an
increase.

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