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ACIDS AND BASES ARE EVERYWHERE:
Every liquid you see will probably be either an acid or a base. The only exception would be distilled water. Distilled water is just water. That's it. Most water you drink has ions in it. Those ions in solution make something acidic or basic. In your body there are small compounds called amino acids. Those are acids. In fruits there is something called citric acid. That's an acid, too. But what about baking soda? When you put that in water, it makes a base. Vinegar? Acid.
Scientists use something called the pH scale to measure
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NAMES TO KNOW:
Here are a couple of definitions you should know:
Acid: A solution that has an excess of H+ ions. It comes from the Latin word acidus that means "sharp".
Base: A solution that has an excess of OH- ions. Another word for base is alkali.
Aqueous: A solution that is mainly water. Think about the word aquarium. AQUA means water. Strong Acid: An acid that has a very low pH (0-4).
Strong Base: A base that has a very high pH (10-14).
Weak Acid: An acid that only partially ionizes in an aqueous solution. That means not every molecule breaks apart. They usually have a pH close to 7 (3-6).
Weak Base: A base that only partially ionizes in an aqueous solution. That means not every molecule breaks apart. They usually have a pH close to 7 (8-10).
Neutral: A solution that has a pH of 7. It is neither acidic nor basic.
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WHAT REALLY HAPPENS?
What really happens in those solutions? It gets a little tricky here. We'll give you the straight answer. Acids are compounds that break into hydrogen (H+) ions and another compound when placed in an aqueous solution. Bases are compounds that break up into hydroxide (OH-) ions and another compound when placed in an aqueous solution.
Let's change the wording a bit. If you have an ionic compound and you put it in water, it will break apart into two ions. If one of those ions is H+, the solution is acidic. If one of the ions is OH-, the solution is basic. There are other ions that make acidic and basic solutions, but we won't be talking about them here.
That pH scale we talked about is actually a measure of the number of H+ ions in a solution. If there are a lot of H+ ions, the pH is very low. If there are a lot of OH- ions, that means the number of H+ ions is very low, so the pH is high.
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That's basically it. (Ha Ha, get it?)