Mendoza, Ramwel Abram A.

20131203106

What are acids and bases? Definitions and Properties

You hear about acids all the time. Acid reflux disease causes some people to have to
take acid reducing medication. The fact of the matter is that you hear the word "acid" all the
time. Most of us, however, don't have any idea what an acid is.

The Bronsted-Lowry definition of acids is that acids are compounds that give off H+
ions when they react with another compound. Likewise, this definition says that bases are
compounds that accept H+ ions from other compounds.

The Arrhenius definition of acids says that they're compounds that give off H+ ions in
water and that bases are compounds that give offOH- ions in water.

These definitions are the same. Basically, if you've got something that can give off H+ in
water, it's an acid. As a result, all acids you'll be seeing in class have hydrogen atoms on them
that are ready to go jumping off in water. Most common acids have the letter H in the beginning
of the formula, with the exception of acetic acid (it's at the end, for reasons we won't go into
here). Bases, on the other hand, are compounds that give off OH- in water. (The two definitions
of a base are for our purposes identical, as OH- combine with H+ to form water -- the Arrhenius
and Bronsted-Lowry definitions are for most purposes identical). When you see the formula of a
base, it's got "OH" in it. The one exception to this is ammonia, NH3. (NH3 combines with
water to form NH4OH, which is really the thing that's basic in ammonia. So our definition is
sort of true).

You can also define acids and bases as being "strong" or "weak". Strong compounds are
compounds that completely break up in water. In other words, if we're talking about a strong
acid, all of the H+ ions break away from the molecule in water. For strong bases, all of the OH-
ions break away from the molecule in water.

There is a difference between a "strong" acid and a "reactive" one. Strong acids are all
reactive, but some "weak" acids can also be extremely reactive. A good example of a weak,
reactive acid is hydrofluoric acid, HF. I had a friend of mine who had a tube full of HF explode
in his face - even though it's a weak acid, he still spent a long time recovering and suffered
permanent scarring. Ask your teacher sometime which acid they'd rather put their hand into,
HCl (a strong acid) or HF (a weak acid). If your teacher knows anything at all about acid
chemistry, they'll reply HCl.

Here are a couple of charts which show the most common acids and bases. Some are strong
and some are weak, as indicated.
 Properties of acids and bases

Properties of acids include the following:

• React with most metals to form hydrogen gas

• Taste sour (like lemons)

• Frequently feel "sticky"

• Usually gases or liquids

Properties of bases include:

• Feel "slippery". (FYI: The slippery feeling is caused because your skin dissolves a little
when you touch them.)

• Taste bitter (like baking soda)

• React with oils and greases (that's why they're used as drain and window cleaners)

• Frequently solids (though ammonia is a gas that's usually dissolved in water)

The pH Scale

Everybody has heard of pH. You've seen it in middle school, you've heard people talk about it in
shampoo commercials, and you can even buy deodorant that's "pH balanced", whatever that
means. Unfortunately, most people don't know what pH is.

pH is a measurement of the H+ concentration in a liquid. If there's a high H+ concentration, the

pH indicates that you've got a very acidic solution. If the solution is neutral, there's only a small
H+ concentration, and the pH reflects that. If the solution is basic, there's almost no H+
concentration, and you can tell that by the pH number. pH is nothing more than a way of telling
how concentrated an H+ solution is.

Here's something people always have problems with: If I have a neutral or basic solution, how
come I can measure the pH? After all, you can only measure pH if there's H+ ions present in a
solution, and shouldn't the H+ concentration be 0 for neutral and basic solutions?
Good question. It turns out that water has the funny property that it tends to spontaneously break
up into H+ and OH- ions no matter how much acid or base you've added. As a result, even very
basic solutions have a little bit of H+ floating around in it. You'd be right in guessing that a very
basic solution doesn't have much H+ because the OH- in the base reacts with it to form water. In
any case, not much of the water breaks up like this: In neutral solutions the concentration of H+
is only 10-7 molar. (Even though there's a little bit of acid present, the solution is still neutral
because there's also a little bit of OH- present - in neutral solutions, this is also 10-7 molar).

The pH values between 0 and 7 are acidic and pH values between 7 and 14 are basic. pH values
of exactly seven are called "neutral" solutions - if the pH is 6.99 it's an acidic solution and if it's
7.01 it's basic. However, people usually refer to solutions with a pH between 6 and 8 as being
"neutral" because they're mostly neutral. Don't put this on a test, though, because it will be
marked WRONG as it's technically wrong.