Water is useful as a solvent rather excellent solvent due to the following properties :
(a) It is a liquid over a wide range of temperature (0° to 100°C).
(b) It has high enthalpy of vapourisation and heat capacity.
(c) It is polar in nature and has a high dielectric constant (78.39).
(i) It can dissolve polar substances and also some organic compounds due to hydrogen bonding.
(ii) Water can hydrolyse oxides, halides, phosphides, nitrides, etc due to interionic attraction between them.