Colligative Properties

[DrillSoHard]

I was watching Chad's videos on colligative properties and he very briefly brought up that molecular compounds such as strong acids and carboxylic acids are electrolytes unlike CH3OH (methanol) for example. My question is how would how would I know how many ions a carboxylic acid would break up into?

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[Triflate]

HOAc + H2O <----> H3O+ + OAc-

Acetic acid is not one of the strong acids, so it is a weak acid, because it does not ionize completely. It partially dissociates in aqueous solution into hydronium and the acetate anion.

To keep it simple - the Van't Hoff factor for acetic acid can be greater than 1 (but smaller than 2) at lower concentrations, but in most cases, it'll just stay as one. This is mainly b/c it is a weak acid.

i = 1