Acids and bases
go hand in hand with the discussion of chemistry.
When you study chemistry you will run into acids and bases. So what
are an acid and a base?
An acid is a term that typically describes a solution where
hydrogen ions, H+, are present. When an acid is
dissolved in water it breaks apart into ions.
For instance, hydrochloric acid, HCl, is a common acid.
When HCl is dissolved in water it breaks apart to an H+
and a Cl- ion. Strong acids have high levels of H+
in solution. Weak acids have low levels of H+ in solution.
A base is not the opposite, but instead of counting the
H+ ions, a base
is dependent on the OH- ions. For example, sodium
hydroxide is a base and has a formula of NaOH. When in water, the
compound breaks apart to
form Na+ and OH- ions. Strong bases
have high levels of
OH- ions in the solution , whereas weak bases have
low levels of OH- in solution.
An acid/base reaction is when you mix an acid and base together,
depending on how strong either one is, and they cancel each other
out. The reasoning is as follows:
Acids have a lot of H+ ions floating around...
Bases have a lot of OH- ions floating around...
When you put equal amounts of H+ and OH-
together in solution, the H’s and OH’s join together to
make HOH....H2O... otherwise know as water!
So when we say they cancel each other out we mean the
H+ and OH- ions are no longer there when
they join to make water. If we've added exactly the same amount
of H+ and OH-, the overall solution will
be neither an acid nor a base - we call this a neutral solution.
The measure of the acid or a base is called ph. You can easily
remember the ph as meaning the "power of hydrogen". Typically,
the concentration of hydrogen ions is anywhere from 1 mole per
liter of solution to 10-14 moles of hydrogen ions per liter.
The pH is a measure of the power, the superscript number above the
10. Therefore, when the proton (hydrogen ion) concentration is
high, the power is low (since the number is closer to one). This
gives a low pH, consistent with that of acids. When the power of
hydrogen increases in its absolute value, the pH increases, consistent
with that of bases.
