6C.17

[Jennifer Lathrop 1F]

For this question, you have to determine whether hypobromite ion or morphine is a stronger base. Then, in the solutions manual, they state that hypobromite is a stronger base because the pKb value is lower. How is this determined when the only thing you are given is the the chemical formula? Am I missing something?

[aisteles1G]

The way I went about figuring this out was seeing that morphine was a stronger acid, more O atoms, so naturally if a compound is a stronger acid then it is a weaker base so hyperbromite is the stronger base then, this goes with pKb values too though, the pKa and pKb values are inversely related so if a compound has a higher pKb value, it will have a lower pKa value (like acid/base strength) so by saying hyperbromite has a lower pKb value it means morphine has a higher pKb value, which you know because it is a stronger acid. As long as you know how to tell which compound is a stronger acid, you should also be able to tell then that the other will be the stronger base, the pK values will correlate with this as well.