Tricks for Determining

[Sameer Chowdhury 3C]

Hey. Does anyone know what any easy way is to determine whether or not a compound is amphoteric or not? As of now all I have is drawing out the structure and seeing if there is a portion of the compound that can act as a lewis base and another part that can act as a lewis acid.

[Rich Luong 1D]

So when thinking about an amphoteric compound, that compound should have both an H+ within it as well as a negative charge to accept other H+. For example, H2PO4- is considered an amphoteric compound. On one hand, the compound could lose an H+ to make it become HPO4 2- and on the other hand, the compound could gain an H+ to make H3PO4. In this case, the compound acts as both an acid and base. I hope this helps!

[Hailey Kang 2K]

Hi! A simple way to look at the trend is that metalloid band plus a few more atoms around it will form amphoteric compounds. If it's difficult to tell based on this, you will need to look at if it can accept as well as donate a proton.

[jessicasilverstein1F]

I think about it as looking to see if there are two things both present: An availible H+ to be donated, and and overall negative charge.

[Mia Meza]

I think about it as looking to see if there are two things both present: An availible H+ to be donated, and and overall negative charge.

Yes^ on the hw problems the solution states you want to look for an H+ (this would be your acid) and a negative value (this would be your base). Hope this made sense

[Samantha Lee 1A]

The easiest way I have learned to determine if the compound is amphoteric is to write out two chemical reactions and see if it has the ability to act as an acid and a base. If it does, it is amphoteric. This would be better than just trying to memorize compounds.