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Haloalkanes And Haloarenes

Question
CBSEENCH12007731

Haloalkanes are insoluble in water. Give reason.

Solution
Haloalkanes (R—X) are insoluble in water because the alkyl group R—(CnH2n+1 ,) is hydro-phobic. That is, R group is water repelling. Thus, haloalkanes are unable to form hydrogen bond with water molecules. In other words we may state that haloalkanes cannot break the strong H—bonds existing between H2O molecules, so R—X molecules do not interact with H2O molecules and therefore R—X is insoluble in H2O.