What are the particles in the glucose solution?

Question

I have a homework question that asks to define an osmole.

As stated an osmole is an amount of substance which must be dissolved in order to produce 6 x 10^23 solute particles

a) What are the particles in the glucose solution?

b) what are the particles in the saline solution?

I'm completely lost here. Any help would be excellent. thanks

Answer 1

ok glucose is an oprganic , non-ionic compound.So the unit defined here as a particle would be the molecule. So 180 grams of glucose contains Avogadro's number of glucose MOLECULES 6.023 X 10^23  and one mole of glucose = 1 Osmol and would loxer the freezing point of water by 1.86 degress C. Salineis a solution of sodium chloride which is an ionic salt. There is no true molecule of NaCl since it is ionized even in the crystalline salt ....and 100% ionized into sodium ions  and chloride anions in water. So the hypothetical "mole" of NaCl ( 58.5 grams ) will produce 1 Osmol of Na+ IONS and 1 Osmol of Chloride anions. Each Osmol is comprised of Avogadro's number of the respective ions...soo saline which is 300mOsM  ( 0.88%) will have 150 mOsmols of Na^+ and 150 mOsmoles of Cl^-1.   So for every hypothetical "mole" of NaCl added to water the freezing point will be lowered 2 X 1.86C ( this is th basis of salting snow-laden highways )