Acids & Bases

Your Guide presents Arrhenius, Bronsted-Lowry, and Lewis definitions of acids and bases. Lists of properties of acids and bases and common examples are provided.

Here are the names and formulas of some of the common acids and bases. Learn how to apply prefixes and suffixes to name the acids and bases.

Learn about strong and weak acids and bases. Get definitions and examples of each type.

Do you know what the strongest acid is? I'll give you a hint. It's not hydrochloric acid nor is it sulfuric acid.

This is an introduction to stereoisomerism of amino acids, with Fisher projections and stereorepresentations of serine used as an example. There are links to learn more about amino acids and about chirality of other molecules.

These are the structures for the twenty natural amino acids, plus the general structure for an amino acid.

Introduce students to chemical reactions and experimentation using common materials and baggies.

How well do you understand the basic concepts of acids, bases, and pH? Here's a ten question multiple choice and true/false quiz you can take to test yourself.

Buffers are an important concept in acid-base chemistry. Here's a look at what buffers are and how they function.

Have you ever wanted to make your own pH paper test strips? This is an easy project that you can complete in a few minutes. Here's a video that guides you through the steps of making pH paper test strips yourself.

See the range of colors you can expect from red cabbage juice when it is used as a pH indicator.

Here is an example of an acid/base problem to calculate the pH of an aqueous solution where the concentration of H⁺ is known.

Here is an example of an acid/base problem to calculate the pH of a strong acid.

Here is an example of an acid/base problem to calculate the pH of a strong base.

Here is an example of an acid/base problem to calculate the pH of a weak acid solution of known concentration.

It's important to add sulfuric acid to water and not water to concentrated sulfuric acid. Here's an explanation of why you don't want to make a mistake and some mnemonics that might help you remember how to play it safe in the chemistry lab.

Perform an experiment to observe the effects of acids, bases, and water on the rate of browning of cut apples or other produce.

Red cabbage juice contains a natural pH indicator that changes color from purple to green under basic (alkaline) conditions. You can use this reaction to make a fried green egg.

You can calculate the pH of a buffer solution or the concentration of the acid and base using the Henderson Hasselbalch equation. Here's a look at the Henderson Hasselbalch equation and a worked example that explains how to apply the equation.

Here's a list of common household substances and garden plants that can be used as pH indicators. Many of the active molecules, expected color changes, and pH ranges are listed.

Is it possible to have a negative pH value? If you are given the molarity of hydrogen ions of an acid that is greater than one, you'll calculate a negative pH value for the acid. Can that really happen? Here's the answer.

This example demonstrates the method used to calculate the amount of an acid of known concentration needed to neutralize a base of known concentration.

This is a quick overview of what pH is and how you can perform typical pH calculations.

Here's a table of the pH of several common chemicals. You can use the list to set up color ranges for pH indicators or simply to learn more about acids and bases.

This is a color diagram of the pH scale. The pH of common chemicals is indicated.

A phosphate buffer is a handy buffer solution to have around, especially for biological applications. Because phosphoric acid has multiple dissociation constants, you can prepare phosphate buffers for any of the three pHs.

An acid-base rainbow wand is an easy and colorful chemistry demonstration which illustrates the range of colors available for a pH indicator solution.

Make your own pH indicator solution! Red cabbage juice contains a natural pH indicator that changes colors according to the acidity of the solution. Red cabbage juice indicator is easy to make, exhibits a wide range of colors, and can be used to make your own pH paper strips.

Learn about the chemistry behind salt formation, including neutralization and hydrolysis reactions.

These are the strong acids. There are only sixstrong acids, so you might want to commit the list of strong acids to memory.

Strong bases are bases which completely dissociate in water. Here is a list of the most common strong bases.

Grasp the basic chemical concepts of titration, a technique used to determine the molarity of an acid or a base.

Titration is a technique used in analytical chemistry to determine the concentration of an unknown acid or base. For all acids, the shape of the graph plotting pH against volume of base titrated fits the same general shapes.

Tris has a pKa of 8.1 so Tris buffer is made at pH 7 to pH 9. You can prepare this buffer at any concentration and any volume and use it to prevent large swings in the pH of a solution.

Use this redox-based iodometric titration to determine the amount of Vitamin C or ascorbic acid in juice and other samples.

Learn how to prepare common acid solutions using this handy table.

Prepare solutions of common bases using this handy reference table which lists the amount of concentrated base solution that is used to make 1 L of base solution.

This chemistry lesson plan covers essential acids and bases terminology and offers students hands-on experience testing common home chemicals to determine whether they are acids, bases or neutral. Only household materials are required for this lesson.

This is a color change chart for edible pH indicators.