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Why is water an universal solvent?

Updated: 8/9/2023
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Wiki User

13y ago

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Water softens and helps to dissolve most anything quickly or over time. Available to everyone in most (not all) locations, it can usually be used safely to clean a wide variety of "surfaces". Here are just some items that water can clean quite well:

  • the human skin
  • the mouth or other mucous membranes
  • the teeth
  • the hands
  • dishes
  • eating utensils
  • cooking pots and pans
  • cook stoves
  • stuck-on food particles
  • wash basins, tubs, showers
  • toilets, even if the "toilet" is a bucket
  • household surfaces
  • wood, metal, stone
  • most painted surfaces
  • clothing and most fabrics
  • automobiles, trucks, farm machinery
  • farm implements and tools
  • paint brushes used with Latex paints (not oil-based)
  • hard-cover books, but soft-cover books would need to have less moisture applied
  • applications of water during the manufacturing process
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Wiki User

12y ago
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Wiki User

13y ago

Water is considered as universal solvent because :

  • it exist in all three states of matter i.e solid ,liquid , gas.
  • it can almost dissolve all solutes including all ions in it .
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13y ago

Water is only a quasi-universal solvent. The chemical and physical properties of water are very suitable for a good solvent. Water is not totally universal. Many glues don't disolve in water, but they do in petrol (gasoline).
this is because water dissolves a lot of substances except oil,etc... likes dissolves likes, polar substances dissolves polar substances and most of the things here in the world are made up of polar substances.

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9y ago

Water is the universal solvent because it can dissolve many different things. Other liquids are not capable of dissolving as many substances.

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Wiki User

11y ago

water is called as the universal solvent bcoz it is the only solution which dissolve other solvents

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Q: Why is water an universal solvent?
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