What is a Protic Solvent?

Answer: A proton, hydrogen atom, or hydrogen ion is referred to as a protic. As a result, a protic solvent contains an atom of hydrogen.

Due to hydrogen bonding, this hydrogen atom can be readily released and made available to solutes. Therefore, an electronegative atom such as oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, etc. should be attached to the hydrogen atom.

They are mostly used to dissolve salts in them and are believed to be acidic in nature.

These solvents can easily give their proton to the solutes or encourage forward-moving reactions, such as a unimolecular nucleophilic substitution
S_N1 reaction.

Water is the most well-known protic solvent. Ethanol, amines, HF solution, etc. are further examples.

Using these solvents in reductive electrochemistry serves as When reduced, they emit hydrogen gas.