Acids and Bases (covered in 14B lecture Jan17th)

[Ashley Barrera 1J]

Hi, can anyone re-explain where or how Professor Lavelle got Kw from the autoprotolysis example was set equal to 10^-14, I don't understand where the multiplying of (1.0*10^-7) with (1.0*10^-7) came from.

[Jessica Dawood]

basically you can think of it as what numbers add up to 14 and are the same ... its 7 because 7 +7 is 14 and 1.0 is the moles of H3O and OH-. kw is found when you multiply the concentration of the two components and you skip dividing by water because has large excess amount so its unchanged.