Aqueous solutions?

I was in chemistry today and we were discussing aqueous solutions (such as NaCl). However, these are only in water. What is it called to have a solution of NaCl in something like liquid oxygen? Or mercury? When I asked my chemistry teacher she simply said we don’t go into that subject in our curriculim.

Enlighten me please!

They are generally refered to as non-aqueous, or more specifically just x in y, for example 0.7M diisobutylaluminium hydride in toluene (2.3 mmol).

Of course, the substance has to be soluble in the liquid first.

If it disolves in alcohol it is called a tincture, e.g. Iodine.

As in “My girlfriend has a tincture of repression.” :smiley:

‘aqueous solution’ is, as I understand, a term that was invented largely because so many of the chemical reactions that chemists work with occur in a solution of water… solvents as esoteric as liquid oxygen and mercury don’t have terms like that I’m pretty sure… (though you could possibly come up with a fancy one using the latin name of mercury… how about hydrargyreous solution?? :wink: )

I do remember, though, in one of my chemistry textbooks, they explained how there’s nothing particularly unique about chemistry in aqueous solutions except how water is a good solvent and some of the reactions are important in biochemistry since living tissue has so much water in it… they even went into a brief discussion of what chemistry in ammoneous (sp?) solutions would be like and demonstrated a few equations and equilibri with (amm) used to indicate components in ammoneous solution… including, IIRC, an example of different ions in ammoneous solution combining to form NH3 (l) : liquid ammonia, just like in acid-base reactions in aqueous solution you have H30 (aq) + HO (aq) = 2 H2O (l) : a hydronium ion and hydroxide ion in aqueous solution exchanging a proton to form two molecules of liquid water, which adds itself to the solvent.

Hope this helps a little.

A “solution” (although I never really think of it as a solution) in mercury is an amalgam. Note that this term is also used for solid mercury alloys.