Why bases sucks moisture from the air and melts?

Edited December 9, 201411 yr by Romix

They don't melt. What does normally happen when you introduce a salt to a volume of water?

I doubt that they would suck moisture from the air. Since most gases are at a much higher kinetic energy state than liquid bases, such interactions under normal conditions seem to me to be quiet unlikely.. "sucking moisture". However under some conditions experienced in our daily lives, gases do "crash" into liquid phases of matter in which they lose much of their kinetic energy from the collision and may or may not interact with the inter molecular forces of the liquid state dictating whether or not the gas will become soluble in that solution. Though this is few and far between at room temperature.

I doubt that they would suck moisture from the air. Since most gases are at a much higher kinetic energy state than liquid bases, such interactions under normal conditions seem to me to be quiet unlikely.. "sucking moisture". However under some conditions experienced in our daily lives, gases do "crash" into liquid phases of matter in which they lose much of their kinetic energy from the collision and may or may not interact with the inter molecular forces of the liquid state dictating whether or not the gas will become soluble in that solution. Though this is few and far between at room temperature.

NaOH is deliquescent. The pellets will get quite wet after a short period of time in normal atmosphere, for reasons that Fuzzwood eluded to. A lot of salts are very good at this, in fact. NaOH is not a liquid in this context, also.

NaOH is deliquescent. The pellets will get quite wet after a short period of time in normal atmosphere, for reasons that Fuzzwood eluded to. A lot of salts are very good at this, in fact. NaOH is not a liquid in this context, also.

 

Oh yes, it escaped my mind that some salts are much more stabile hydrated. For example CaCl2.

Using a "quick" definition of bases, they tend to take protons away, and water/moisture has plenty of them, so bases usually react with water, (acid/base equilibrium) and that makes favorable the reaction of getting hydrated or even dissolving.

But bases definitely do not "melt" in water. Melting only occurs above the melting temperature of a compound.

Why bases sucks moisture from the air and melts?

Most bases don't do that.