How do you know if a compound is soluble in a particular solvent?

1 Answer
Dec 16, 2017

How else but by experiment?

Explanation:

Of course, there exist rationales to explain the experimental result, but these are #"a posteriori"#....you do the experiment first, and then try to rationalize the result.

And so how do you rationalize this result? It is a fact that ethanol is soluble in hexane, and yet methanol, like water, is INSOLUBLE in hexane, and forms 2 separate layers with hexane. Why should this be so?