Question

When solid borax is dissolved in water do you expect entropy of the system to increase or decrease?will the sign of delta s be posoitive or negative?

Answer 1

When a solid is dissolved, the state transitions to a liquid - a higher entropy substance than the previous solid. Therefore, the entropy of the system will increase, and, by convention, the sign of delta S will be positive.

Answer 2

Explanation:

As we know that entropy means the degree of randomness present within the molecules of a substance.

Hence, disorderly the atoms of a substance are more will be its entropy. So, when more is the entropy then sign of entropy change is positive. Similarly, less is the entropy then sign of entropy change will be negative.

For example, when solid borax is dissolved in water then its atoms move away from each other. This means that degree of randomness increases with its solubility in water.

Thus, we can conclude that when solid borax is dissolved in water then entropy of the system increases and sign of $\Delta S$ is positive.