Question

What are lyophilic and lyophobic colloids ? Which of these sols can be easily coagulated on the addition of small amounts of electrolytes?

Answer 1

Lyophillic colloids: It is made up of two words; ‘Lyo’ meaning liquid and ‘Phillic’ meaning loving, so those colloids which are attracted by the liquid (solvent), are called as lyophillic colloids. These are also called reversible sols. These are quite stable and cannot be easily coagulated.

Lyophobic colloids: It is made up of two words; ‘Lyo’ meaning liquid and ‘Phobic’ meaning repelling, so those colloids which are repelled by the liquid ( solvent), are called as lyophobic colloids. These are also called irreversible sols and these are unstable and can be easily coagulated due to lack of protecting layer around charged colloidal particles, they easily form cluster. Hence, they got easily coagulated on addition of small amount of electrolyte.