Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Here's a question...

Solvents

The answer is definitively YES.

There are two classes of compounds - polar and non-polar. Water is an excellent solvent for polar componds (like Sea salt). Water is a BAD solvent for non-polar compounds like Oil.

A non-polar solvent (like liquid CO2 - a genuine cryogenic liquid) is an excellent solvent for oils and a bad solvent for water or salt. (But CO2 does "dissolve" in water by forming an acid compound, and CO2 is actually weakly polar. Nonetheless, under pressure, liquid CO2 does not freely mix with water - it forms immiscible globs. At low temperatures, clathrate ice forms at the CO2-H2O boundary.).

I would guess, from the symmetry of the diatomic molecules that most cryogenic gases are non-polar.

Solubility is also a strong function of temperature, so very little would be dissolved at cryogenic temperatures, but it could be "enough".

Other solvents have interesting intermediate and complexing behaviour:-

Alcohol dissolves oil, alcohol mixes with water. You can remove water from your car's gas tank by adding alcohol, or oil from a water tank by adding alcohol.

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