Which of the following liquids has the highest surface tension?
Question 1 Report
Answer Details
Surface tension is a property of liquids that arises due to the cohesive forces between the molecules at the surface. It can be thought of as the "skin" or "film" that forms on the surface of a liquid.
Considering the options given:
- Soapy water: Soapy water contains soap molecules that can disrupt the cohesive forces between water molecules, reducing the surface tension. Therefore, soapy water is likely to have a lower surface tension compared to other liquids.
- Water: Water molecules have strong cohesive forces, allowing them to form hydrogen bonds with each other. As a result, water has relatively high surface tension.
- Mercury: Mercury is a metal with metallic bonding, which is much stronger than the cohesive forces in liquids. As a result, mercury has very high surface tension.
- Oil: Oils typically consist of nonpolar molecules, which have weaker cohesive forces compared to polar molecules like water. Therefore, oil generally has lower surface tension than water.
Based on this information, we can conclude that mercury has the highest surface tension among these liquids.
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