 In this video we're going to talk about how to identify a weak electrolyte, a strong electrolyte, and a non-electrolyte. So first what's the difference between these three types of electrolytes? What you need to know is that a strong electrolyte conducts electricity very well. A weak electrolyte conducts it just a little and a non-electrolyte does not conduct electricity in water. So what are some examples of strong electrolytes? Strong acids, strong bases, and ionic compounds that are very soluble are strong electrolytes. These compounds they ionize completely in water. A weak electrolyte could be an insoluble compound, an insoluble ionic compound. It could be a weak acid, a weak base. A non-electrolyte could dissolve in water, but it just doesn't ionize. A weak electrolyte state ionized may be 1% to 2%, a strong electrolyte state ionized completely, almost 100% ionization. So I'm going to give you some compounds and I want you to determine if it's a weak, strong, or non-electrolyte. So let's start with HCl. Hydrochloric acid. Which category should we place this molecule in? Hydrochloric acid is a strong acid. So therefore it's a strong electrolyte. It ionizes completely and it conducts electricity very well when placed in water. Now what about HF? HF is a weak acid. It doesn't ionize very well. So HF is a weak electrolyte. Now what about H2SO4? So fearic acid. So fearic acid is one of the strong acids that you need to know. So this would go in the strong electrolyte column. Now what about sucrose? C12H22O11. Sucrose table sugar dissolves in water but it doesn't ionize. Sugar water is not conductive. If you try to pass an electrical current to it, nothing will happen. It doesn't conduct electricity. So this is a non-electrolyte. Since it doesn't ionize at all. Now what about sodium chloride? Table salt. Salt dissolves in water and it ionizes in water. Because it dissolves well because it's soluble, it's going to be a strong electrolyte. It ionizes completely. Now what about silver chloride? According to the soluble e-rules, silver chloride is insoluble. It's an ionic compound but for the most part, 99% of it does not dissolve. Only a small fraction dissolves so we can put this as a weak electrolyte. It's a very weak electrolyte but only a small percentage actually breaks up into ions. Now what about ammonium chloride? Which category would you place this compound in? Is this a weak electrolyte, strong electrolyte or non-electrolyte? ammonium chloride breaks up into ammonium cations and chloride ions. According to the solubility chart, ammonium is always soluble. So therefore, this is a strong electrolyte. Anytime you have a soluble ionic compound, it will ionize completely. Now what about potassium hydroxide? Which category would you place this under? KLWH is a strong base and anytime you have an alkaline earth metal, I mean that alkaline earth metal, but an alkaline metal, a group one metal, they are always soluble. Which means they ionize completely and so they can be part of the strong electrolyte category. Another example of a strong base would be barium hydroxide. It's soluble and it releases a lot of hydroxide ions in solution. It ionizes pretty well so that too would be a strong electrolyte. Now what about lead to chloride? Where would you place that? The halides are soluble with silver, lead and mercury. So lead to chloride because it's an insoluble ionic compound, it's going to be a weak electrolyte. Now what about methanol, CH3OH? Typically, when you have a hydrocarbon, if you have a molecule of carbon hydrogen and maybe some oxygen as well, for the most part, not always, but for the most part, it's going to be a non-electrally. Alcohol is like methanol and even ethanol, C2H5OH, sometimes you might see it in this way, CH3CH2OH. Now on methanol, these zakahols are non-electrallyte. They do not ionize. Now they're polar and so they dissolve in water. You can mix them with water, but they don't ionize. They don't form positive and negative charges and therefore they don't connect electricity which makes them non-electrallyte. Now what about this one? This is acetic acid. Is that a weak electrolyte, strong electrolyte or non-electrallyte? This is one of those molecules where it looks like a hydrocarbon with oxygen, but it's not a non-electrallyte. Acetic acid is a weak acid, so it does ionize just a little. Only this hydrogen is acidic. Don't want it on the left. The other hydrogens are not acidic. So it partially ionizes. So for every 100 molecules of acetic acid, maybe one out of those hundreds might ionize into these two ions. So therefore acetic acid, which can be found in vinegar, is considered to be a weak electrolyte. Now what about ammonia? NH-Dry, does that ionize? Ammonia is a weak base. When you put it with water, it grabs the hydrogen from water, forming ammonium and hydroxide. So therefore NH-Dry, it's a weak electrolyte. It does cause ionization in water to occur. It creates ions. So NH-Dry is a weak base, which makes it a weak electrolyte in water. Now what about potassium nitrate? Potassium nitrate is always soluble. Nitrates, always soluble, potassium, which is an alkaline metal, found in group 1, that's always soluble. So that's going to be a strong electrolyte. And finally glucose, C6, H12, O6. Glucose is a sugar molecule like sucrose. So therefore this is going to be a non-electrolyte. It does not ionize. So hopefully this gave you a good idea of how to distinguish a weak, strong, and non-electrolyte. So keep this in mind. Strong electrolytes. Organize is very well. They have 100% ionization, or close to it. So strong electrolytes include strong acids, strong bases, and soluble ionic compounds. A weak electrolyte conducts electricity partially. So you have partial ionization. It could be 5% or less. So weak electrolytes include weak acids, weak bases, and also insoluble ionic compounds. The last category are non-electrolytes. In a typical general chemistry course, the most common molecules you'll see in this area are the sugar molecules like glucose and sucrose, and the alcohols like methanol, ethanol, propanol, and things like that. So that's it for this video. If you want to find more videos on chemistry, you can visit my channel, check out my general chemistry playlist, and you can find other videos there if you're taking physics as well, or algebra, trig, precalculous, or calculus. I got videos on those topics as well. So feel free to check that out when you get a chance.