Q.Do you expect different products in solution when aluminium(III) chloride and potassium chloride treated separately with

Aluminium(III) chloride, AlCl3: Al³⁺ is small and highly charged, giving it strong polarising power, so AlCl3 is significantly covalent and hydrolyses readily in water:

• (i) Normal water: AlCl3 undergoes hydrolysis, giving a precipitate of aluminium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid:

• (ii) Acidified water: The high concentration of H⁺ (a product of the hydrolysis) shifts the equilibrium back (common-ion/Le Chatelier effect), largely suppressing hydrolysis — AlCl3/Al³⁺ remains predominantly in solution rather than precipitating as Al(OH)3.
• (iii) Alkaline water: AlCl3 first reacts with the hydroxide to precipitate Al(OH)3:

Since Al(OH)3 is amphoteric, excess alkali dissolves this precipitate to form soluble sodium aluminate:

Potassium chloride, KCl: K⁺ is large and singly charged (low polarising power), and Cl⁻ is the anion of a strong acid — so KCl is essentially fully ionic and does not hydrolyse in water at all.

• (i) Normal water: KCl simply dissolves, giving hydrated K⁺ and Cl⁻ ions; the solution remains neutral.
• (ii) Acidified water: KCl remains dissolved and unreacted; no new product forms.
• (iii) Alkaline water: KCl again remains dissolved and unreacted; it does not react with the added alkali. …

Assess each salt's tendency to hydrolyse based on the polarising power of the cation (small, highly-charged Al³⁺ vs. large, singly-charged K⁺) and the nature of the anion (both from a …

• Assuming KCl also hydrolyses like AlCl3 — KCl (from a strong acid and effectively-strong base K⁺) does not hydrolyse at all. …