Amphoteric Species - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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concept
Intro to Amphoteric Species
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Here we're going to say that an amphoteric also called an amphiprotic substance is one that can act as an acid or base based on its environment. So, an acid, we're going to say an acid here is a substance that donates or gives away an H+ ion, also referred to as a proton, when dissolved in a solvent. A base on the other hand is a substance that accepts an H+ Proton when dissolved in a solvent. Now we're going to say many efiltrics species possess an H+ ion at the beginning of the compound and a negative charge at the end. So this is a way of spotting many types of amphoteric species. Now a big exception to this is water. Water is a prime example of an amphoteric species that doesn't exactly fit this description. If we take a look here, we have water behaving in 2 different reactions. In the first one it acts as an acid when it reacts with the fluoride ion. Here, if it's acting as an acid it's going to donate an H+ to F- H+ combined they have opposite charges so they cancel out to give us HF. We lose an H+ from the water so what's going to be left behind is Oh-. Now in another equation we have the strong acid hydrochloric acid. In this one water will behave as a base and accept an H+ from the acid. Now, here to make things a little bit visually easier to see, so just imagine H+ going here and H+ went here. So H+ went to the water, so H plus left HCl, so what's left behind is Cl minus. H plus is combining with the neutral water to give us H3O plus Now here, remember H3O plus represents the hydronium ion. Up to this point we've been saying that H+ and H+ are very similar to each other. They're synonymous, interchangeable. So when we're really saying H+, we're basically saying that H+ can be donated to any of the water molecules within our solution thereby creating H30+. That's why we kind of say that they can represent the same thing. So water is a great example of an amphoteric species. If we take a look at others based on the description that we set up above they all have a hydrogen in the beginning and they all have a negative charge. So that's a good giveaway that the rest of these examples below represent amphoteric species. Alright, so keep that in mind. Amphoteric species based on what's around them they can act as an acid or as a base. Alright. So now that we've done this, click on to the next video and let's talk a little bit more about amphoteric species with an example problem.
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example
Amphoteric Species Example
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Which of the following compounds is amphoteric when placed in water? We know that water itself is a prime example of an amphoteric species, It's not present here, so fall back on our other definition for an amphoteric species. They begin with a hydrogen and they possess a negative charge at the end. If we take a look, which choice fits this description? If we take a look the answer has to be option c, because with option c we have a hydrogen at the beginning and we have a negative charge at the end. Here this represents bisulfite ion, or hydrogen sulfite ion. It's an apotheric species, based on what's around it it could behave as an acid or a base. So in this particular question we have option C as our final answer.
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Problem
Problem
Which of the following species is amphiprotic within an aqueous solvent?