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Ch.16 - Acid-Base Equilibria

Chapter 16, Problem 5c

The following diagrams represent aqueous solutions of three acids, HX, HY, and HZ. The water molecules have been omitted for clarity, and the hydrated proton is represented as H+ rather than H3O+.(c) Which solution would have the highest pH?

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Hello everyone today. We have been given the following problem. The diagram below shows agree solutions of three acidic solutions H A H B NH c identify which of these three solutions will have the lowest ph know that the water molecules are not shown for clarity. So here we have hydrogen that's attached to three different molecules here. It's important to note that strong acids constitute a low ph or low ph constitutes strong acids. So the lower the ph the stronger the acid. We also know that strong acids tend to be completely ionized, meaning separated. So if we have a che for example, H. A will completely dissociate into H plus and a minus molecules. And so it's our job to figure out which one has the most separated ions. And so we see here that H. A. Actually has all of its molecules separated. So H. A. Is going to be the it's going to have the lowest ph and also be the strongest acid, whereas H. B. And H. C. They have some partial dissociation of molecules, but they still have molecules that are together and so therefore H. A. Has the lowest ph. And at that we've answered the question. I hope this helped until next time