Hydrogen bonding plays a central role in the following phenomena:

Hydrogen bonding plays a central role in the following phenomena:
  1. Ice floats in water
  2. Higher Lewis basicity of primary amines than tertiary amines in aqueous solutions
  3. Formic acid is more acidic than acetic acid
  4. Dimerisation of acetic acid in benzene

Solution

A] Ice has cage-like structure in which each water molecule is surrounded by four other water molecules tetrahedral through hydrogen boding, due to this density of ice is less than water and it floats in water.
B]


The cation (I) more stabilized through hydrogen boding than cation II . So, R-NH2 is better base than R3N in aqueous solution.
C] HCOOH is stronger acid than CH3COOH due to inductive effect and not due to hydrogen bonding.
D] Acetic acid dimerizes in benzene through intermolecular hydrogen bonding.

Asked in: JEE Advanced 2014 (Paper 1)

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