Having an aversion to water; tending to coalesce and form droplets in water is described as what?

• A. Hydrophobic
• B. Hydrophilic
• C. Solution
• D. Ribonucleic Acid

Answer: (A)

Hydrophobic describes aversion to water and the tendency to coalesce into droplets in water. Nonpolar substances don’t form favorable interactions with water, so water molecules prefer to hydrogen-bond with each other rather than with the nonpolar surface. To minimize disruption of water’s network, hydrophobic molecules aggregate, creating droplets or separated phases. Hydrophilic substances, by contrast, interact well with water and tend to dissolve or disperse. A solution is simply a uniform mixture, not a property of how something interacts with water, and ribonucleic acid is unrelated to this behavior.