Solvent
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A solvent is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. The quantity of solute that can dissolve in a specific volume of solvent varies with temperature.
Water is a solvent for polar molecules and the most common solvent used by living things, as it's generally inert and not flammable.
General
Solvents can be broadly classified into two categories: polar and non-polar. A special case is mercury, whose solutions are known as amalgams; also, other metal solutions exist which are liquid at room temperature.
Generally, the dielectric constant of the solvent provides a rough measure of a solvent's polarity. The strong polarity of water is indicated by its high dielectric constant of 88 (at 0 °C). Solvents with a dielectric constant of less than 15 are generally considered to be nonpolar. However, dielectric constants are not the only measure of polarity.
Solvents with a dielectric constant (more accurately, relative static permittivity) greater than 15 (i.e. polar or polarizable) can be further divided into protic and aprotic. Protic solvents solvate anions (negatively charged solutes) strongly via hydrogen bonding. Water is a protic solvent. Aprotic solvents such as acetone or dichloromethane tend to have large dipole moments (separation of partial positive and partial negative charges within the same molecule) and solvate positively charged species via their negative dipole.
