Now, weak electrolytes represent solutes that partially dissolve. They partially dissolve into ions when placed in a solvent. Here we have HF. HF is hydrofluoric acid, which is a weak acid. Acids are typically found in their aqueous form in solution. Here, it's going to break up into the H+ ion aqueous plus F- ion aqueous. Realize here that we see a double arrow here, this reversible arrow. This indicates that we have a weak electrolyte. So, if you're ever looking at a balanced equation and you see a double arrow or reversible arrow like this, that means that this is a weak electrolyte.
Now, weak electrolytes can be either insoluble ionic compounds. Yes. Even insoluble ionic compounds break up a little bit. Weak acids or weak bases. So here, let's take a look at the classifications of electrolytes. We already went over the strong electrolytes earlier. If you haven't looked at that video, make sure you go back and take a look. Now let's look at your weak electrolyte. Your weak electrolytes don't dissociate completely, they dissociate partially. Because they only partially dissociate, it's mostly molecules and only some ions. So if we look up above, we would say that for this weak electrolyte of hydrofluoric acid, a vast majority of it would stay in this form of a HF aqueous, and very little of these ions would actually be formed. So a vast majority of it is still on the reactant side of the equation.
Now, conductivity, we're going to say is weak. Weak because we don't make very many of those ions on the product side. Here we have, in green, our insoluble ionic compounds like calcium sulfate, barium sulfate, and calcium sulfide. These are just some examples of insoluble ionic compounds based on our understanding of the solubility rules. Great examples of weak acids are hydrofluoric acid, which we saw up above, and acetic acid. And then some great examples of weak bases are magnesium hydroxide and ammonia. Now, these are not the only weak acids or weak bases. These are just some great examples of weak acids and weak bases which we can classify as weak electrolytes. So just keep in mind the differences between strong electrolytes and weak electrolytes.