Why do polar/nonpolar solutes only dissolve in like solvents and not opposite ones?
To understand this, you need to understand the difference between polar and nonpolar compounds at a molecular level. Polar vs. nonpolar is pretty much how it sounds; you think of a magnet as being polar; one end is negatively charged and the other is positively charged. Compounds are the same way. When two atoms form a covalent bond, they are sharing an electron. Now, all atoms have a constant electronegativity value, which determines how much of a pull they will have on any shared electrons. So say you have a bond between two atoms of the same element, say, a molecular of oxygen (O2). This is actually a double bond, so two electrons are being shared, but the concept is the same: both atoms sharing the bond will have the same pull on the shared electrons; therefore, the electrons will be evenly ditributed between the two atoms, and the bond is thought of as nonpolar. However, say you have a bond between an oxygen atom and a hydrogen atom (as in the case of water, which has two H’s for
