Since the dissolution of one substance in another can occur only if there is a decrease in the Gibbs energy, it follows that, generally speaking, gases and solids do not dissolve in liquids as readily as do other liquids. To understand this, the dissolution of a solid can be visualized as occurring in two steps: in the first, the pure solid is melted at constant temperature to a pure liquid, and, in the second, that liquid is dissolved at constant temperature in the solvent. Similarly, the dissolution of a gas can be divided at some fixed pressure into two parts, the first corresponding to constant-temperature condensation of the pure gas to a liquid and the second to constant-temperature mixing of that liquid with solvent. In many cases, the pure liquids (obtained by melting or by condensation) may be hypothetical (i.e., unstable and, therefore, physically unobtainable), but usually their properties can be estimated by reasonable extrapolations. It is found that the change in Gibbs energy corresponding to the first step is positive and, hence, in opposition to the change needed for dissolution. For example, at -10° C, ice is more stable than water, and, at 110° C and one atmosphere, steam is more stable than water. Therefore, the Gibbs energy of melting ice at -10° C is positive, and the Gibbs energy of condensing steam at one atmosphere and 110° C is also positive. For the second step, however, the change in Gibbs energy is negative; its magnitude depends on the equilibrium composition of the mixture. Owing to the positive Gibbs energy change that accompanies the first step, there is a barrier that makes it more difficult to dissolve solids and gases as compared with liquids.

For gases at normal pressures, the positive Gibbs energy of condensation increases with rising temperature, but, for solids, the positive Gibbs energy of melting decreases with rising temperature. For example, the change in energy, ΔG, of condensing steam at one atmosphere is larger at 120° C than it is at 110° C, while the change in energy of melting ice at -5° C is smaller than it is at -10° C. Thus, as temperature rises, the barrier becomes larger for gases but lower for solids, and therefore, with few exceptions, the solubility of a solid rises while the solubility of a gas falls as the temperature is raised.

For solids, the positive Gibbs energy “barrier” depends on the melting temperature. If the melting temperature is much higher than the temperature of the solution, the barrier is large, shrinking to zero when the melting temperature and solution temperature become identical.

The tables give the solubilities of some common gases and the solubility of (solid) naphthalene in a few typical solvents. These solubilities illustrate the qualitative rule that “like dissolves like”; thus naphthalene, an aromatic hydrocarbon, dissolves more readily in another aromatic hydrocarbon such as benzene than it does in a chlorinated solvent such as carbon tetrachloride or in a hydrogen-bonded solvent such as methyl alcohol. By similar reasoning, the gas methane, a paraffinic hydrocarbon, dissolves more readily in another paraffin such as hexane than it does in water. In all three solvents, the gas hydrogen (which boils at -252.5° C) is less soluble than nitrogen (which boils at a higher temperature, -195.8° C).

While exceptions may occur at very high pressures, the solubility of a gas in a liquid generally rises as the pressure of that gas increases. When the pressure of the gas is much larger than the vapour pressure of the solvent, the solubility is often proportional to the pressure. This proportionality is consistent with Henry’s law, which states that, if the gas phase is ideal, the solubility x₂ of gas 2 in solvent 1 is equal to the partial pressure (the vapour-phase mole fraction y₂ times the total pressure P—i.e., y₂P) divided by a temperature-dependent constant, H_2,1 (called Henry’s constant), which is determined to a large extent by the intermolecular forces between solute 2 and solvent 1:

When the vapour pressure of solvent 1 is small compared with the total pressure, the vapour-phase mole fraction of gas 2 is approximately one, and the solubility of the gas is proportional to the total pressure.