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is glycerol hydrophobic or hydrophilic (biology)

anyone please help me
hydrophilic i think : glycerol molecules form a hydrophilic environment around the immobilized lipase molecule, thus preventing the hydrophobic substrate from coming into contact with the enzyme
(edited 1 year ago)
glycerol’s structure has free OH groups and any molecule that is short chained and has OH groups (like glycerol) is polar so it is hydrophilic.

i suggest that you look at the structure of glycerol. it really helps.
Original post by JA03
glycerol’s structure has free OH groups and any molecule that is short chained and has OH groups (like glycerol) is polar so it is hydrophilic.

i suggest that you look at the structure of glycerol. it really helps.

thanks,

also, are all molecules either, hydrophobic, hydrophilic or both? So, there are no molecules that are neutral?
Original post by BrightBlueStar11
thanks,

also, are all molecules either, hydrophobic, hydrophilic or both? So, there are no molecules that are neutral?

no molecules are neutral. they are either hydrophilic or hydrophobic. there may be some molecules that are slightly hydrophobic or slightly hydrophilic but there’s really no neutral molecules.
Original post by BrightBlueStar11
thanks,

also, are all molecules either, hydrophobic, hydrophilic or both? So, there are no molecules that are neutral?

That's an interesting question. Bear in mind that being hydrophilic means the molecule dissolves (i.e. forms hydrogen bonds) in water. I looked it up and found that "hydroneutral" molecules have been suggested to exist. These molecules don't dissolve in water and form very weak hydrogen bonds. They include polymers with ester sidegroups or backbones. This is the paper, but it is behind a paywall so you probably can't see it: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/CP/C4CP01280A

For all intents and purposes (unless you're in the chemistry profession) molecules either contain hydrophobic or hydrophilic groups as JA03 said
thank you so much guys :smile:

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