Most vitamins can be classified as either fat soluble, which results in their tendency to accumulate in the body (so that taking too much can be harmful), or water soluble, which results in their tendency to be quickly eliminated from the body in urine. Examine the structural formulas and space-filling models of these vitamins and determine whether each one is fat soluble (mostly nonpolar) or water soluble (mostly polar). (c) niacin (vitamin B3)

Video transcript

Hi everyone here we have a question asking us to classify the following molecule as water or fat soluble. Water is a polar molecule. Fat is non polar and if we remember correctly, likes, dissolved likes, so this would need to be a non polar molecule to be fat soluble. So if we look at the molecule, we have mostly carbon and hydrogen, which have very little difference in electro negativity, meaning that that is non polar. We do have one hydroxy group which is polar, but this one hydroxy group isn't going to negate the non polarity of the rest of the carbon hydrogen groups. So it is going to be non polar like fat, meaning it will dissolve in fat. Thank you for watching. Bye.