Question

Give me reactions to differentiate hydration and hydrolysis

Answer 1

Hydrolysis: Breaking of a compund using water.

Eg. NaCl + H2O ---> NaOH + HCl

Hydration: Addition of a water molecule to a compound

Eg. Hydration of ethene

..... C2H4 + H2O → CH3CH2OH

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In both cases, water is required.

But hydration is an electrophilic addition reaction (to an alkene) so there is no splitting/cleavage of the original molecule . It merely involves adding a hydrogen atom and an -OH group to to unsaturated molecule where the C=C bond is located.

In hydrolysis, water is added to cleave/split a larger molecule into two smaller molecules , example using a water molecule to break an ester bond , amide bond, glycolytic bond ,etc . Example hydrolysis of sucrose to glucose and fructose by cleaving the glycolytic bond

Or hydrolysis of ethyl ethanoate an ester into ethanol (an alcohol) and ethanoic acid (a carboxylic acid) by breaking the ester linkage.