NSCI 1322 Lecture Notes - Lecture 40: Acid Strength, Conjugate Acid, The Strongest
12 Jan 2017
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It is important to understand that the terms stronger and weaker are used here only in a comparative sense. An acid base reaction normally goes in the direction of the weaker acid. You can use this fact to compare the relative strengths of any two acids. This procedure of determining the relative order of acid strengths by comparing their relative ionizations in water cannot be used to obtain the relative strengths of two strong acids such as hcl and hi. When these acids are dissolved in water, they are essentially 100% ionized. However, if you look at solutions of equal concentrations of these acids in another solvent that is less basic than water say, pure acetic acid you do see a difference. By comparing reactions between different pairs of bases, you can arrive at a relative order for base strengths, just as for acids. A definite relationship exists between acid and base strengths.
