Acid Base Reactions

General Chemistry Index

Where are we going with this? This page will assist in developing the ability to classify solutions as acids or bases and describe their characteristic properties and/or compare and contrast the strength of acids and bases in solutions and/or, given the hydronium ion and/or the hydroxide ion concentration, calculate the pH and/or the pOH of a solution. Explain the meanings of these values.

Acid-Base Reactions

https://www.britannica.com/science/acid-base-reaction

Okay, so this one sort of defines itself! An acid-base reaction is a reaction between an acid and a base. 

There has to be more…

The definition can be expanded to explain that, in an acid-base reaction, the H⁺ and OH^- ions will "find each other" and form water. Then, the "other guys" will combine to form a salt.

To make this into a fancy definition, we might have something like…

In and acid-base reaction, the H⁺ ions separate from their constituent anions and the OH^- ions separate from their constituent cations resulting in H2O and a salt made of the anion and cation.

So… salt? Not "salt" but "a salt." We need a definition.

In chemistry…

A salt, when the result of an acid-base reaction, is a substance that consists of the ionic assembly of a positive ion (cation) from a base and the negative ion (anion) from an acid. 

So… not table salt. But, yes, NaCl (table salt) is a salt according to chemistry. But it's not the only salt.

There are lots of different salts. Pretty much anything from the periodic table columns 1 and 2 with anything from column 17… And a whole lot more! A few include:

• sodium chromate
• potassium dichromate
• cobalt nitrate
• copper sulfate
• potassium
• nickel chloride

That is NOT a complete list by far!

More info…

So… back to that acid base reaction…

Mixing an acid and a base typically results in water and a salt. For instance…

NaOH + HCl ---> NaCl + H2O

KOH + HBr --->  KBr + H2O

Because the properties of both the acid and the base are eliminated, acid-base reactions are sometimes called acid-base neutralization reactions.