State whether each of the following refers to a saturated or an unsaturated solution:
c. A uric acid concentration of 4.6 mg/100 mL in the kidney does not cause gout.

Question

State whether each of the following refers to a saturated or an unsaturated solution:

c. A uric acid concentration of 4.6 mg/100 mL in the kidney does not cause gout.

Accepted Answer

Welcome back, everyone. We need to identify if the following scenario depicts an unsaturated, saturated or supersaturated solution where we have a saline solution that has a salt concentration of 0.90% weight by volume percent without any of it precipitating out of the solution even at a slightly lower temperature. Let's begin by defining first an unsaturated solution in which for an unsaturated solution, we have additional solute which can be dissolved. Further recall that our solute is our substance being dissolved. Next, we can define a saturated solution in which we have maximum solute which is dissolved. And third, we can define a super saturated solution in which we have greater than the maximum amount of solute being dissolved or is dissolved. Now, based on what our prompt tells us at a slightly lower temperature, we won't have any further salt which is precipitated from our saline solution. It says that without any of the saline is precipitated out of the solution even at a slightly lower temperature. So therefore, let's note that we have no saline precipitated at delta T which represents a change in temp. Now, we're going to consider the following two scenarios where we would say if we had a supersaturated solution at our current temperature, which we'll say is T one, we should observe some precipitated sailing. We can also consider if we have a saturated solution where at a lower temperature, which will say is T two, we should still observe that we have saline precipitated. Now, according to our prompt, we noted down that we have no saline precipitated even at a lower temperature. And so, based on what we've outlined, we can say, therefore, our solution is going to be most likely unsaturated since we would have an absence of saline precipitate at a temperature change, meaning we would still have additional solute available to be dissolved. And so our final answer is going to be that our solution is most likely unsaturated. So I hope that this made sense and let us know if you have any questions.

State whether each of the following refers to a saturated or an unsaturated solution:
c. A uric acid concentration of 4.6 mg/100 mL in the kidney does not cause gout.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Saturated Solution

Unsaturated Solution

Gout