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In an experiment, a student put equal volumes of mixtures of ethanoic acid in water and ethanoic acid in hexane in two test-tubes as
shown below. In each test-tube, equal amounts of solid sodium hydrogen carbonate were added.

(a) State the observation which was made in each test-tube.
(b) Explain the observation in (a) above.

Answer Text:
a)Test tube 1:There is effervescence Test tube 2: No effervescence
b)Ethanoic acid ionizes in water and the #H^(+)# reacts with sodium hydrogen carbonate hence effervescence. In hexane, ethanoic acid exists in form of molecules hence no reaction with carbonate.