solvents - What is the difference between melting and dissolving?

What is the difference between melting and dissolving? I am looking some general features.

The answer should be adaptable to the melting/dissolving of ice cube (water) in a class of pure alcohol (ethanol) just below (or at the) melting point of ice, or similar phenomena.

I am now assuming that the ice is dissolving and melting at the same time.

In other words which reaction energy is higher in the following reactions:

$$\begin{align} \ce{H_2O(s) &\to H_2O(l)\\ H_2O(s) + n EtOH(l) &\to H_2O \centerdot (EtOH)_{n}} \end{align}$$

Or, are there substances that release more energy in dissolvation than consume in melting?

Answer

Juha invited me to write a summary (see comment on my previous answer ) of the differences between melting and dissolving. I’ll try to outline this roughly in the same order as his. I'm giving this as a new answer since my last answer was quite long as it was.

Differences:

• Melting and dissolving are completely different processes on the molecular/atomic level that could not be mistaken for each other if you could observe what was happening at that scale.


• If you cool the liquid that arose from melting the solid, to a temperature below it’s melting point, you would see the entire sample solidify. If you cool the solution (dissolved solid + solute) to below the melting point of the solid (solute) in it, you would see no change. (Unless you had a saturated or nearly saturated solution.)


• Melting requires only a single substance and energy input while dissolving requires a solvent and a solute that are compatible (“like forces”). (This is actually a pretty huge difference and would potentially affect all of the physical and chemical properties.) Dissolving a solid can be either endo- or exo-thermic.


• "Phase change" (wording from the previous summary) In each case you end up with a liquid. Melting caused a phase change (composition of the substance didn’t change) while dissolving a solid in a liquid is not considered a phase change since a change in composition occurred.

Similarities:

• In each case, forces between the particles that comprise the solid are disrupted and that takes energy. (Whether it’s chemical bonds or intermolecular forces depends on the process and on the solid and on your definitions. (See this question.) But melting (rare exception noted in previous comments) is endothermic and dissolving can be either endo- or exo-thermic.


• In each case you end up with a liquid. Macroscopically, if you walked into a room and saw the liquid on the table, it would be difficult to say whether this liquid came from a solid that had melted or a solid that had dissolved in a solute and made a solution. But it would be very easy to determine which you had experimentally in a “dozen” different ways.



• Both melting and dissolving require interaction among groups of atoms, molecules, or ions.

There are probably more differences that could be given (how to handle thermodynamic calculations, complexity of the system etc.), and possibly more similarities, but that's enough for me on this topic.