Acids & Bases

[Sean Phen]

How do you tell which is the acid and which is the base?

[Caelin Brenninkmeijer 1G]

There are two possible definitions:
Lewis acid- a species that accepts an electron pair
Lewis base- donates an electron pair
Bronsted acid- a proton donor
Bronsted base- accepts a proton
They mean the same thing, it's just a matter of preference.

[Sydney Lam_2I]

Also, I believe that we will be using more of the Bronsted definition for 14B!

[vanessanguyen3I]

Going off of what Caelin said, acids also typically have H in their name at the beginning like HCl. If not that, they also usually have -COOH in their names to represent the carboxyl group in weak acids. For bases, they're typically metal oxides or hydroxides.

[David Liu 1E]

you should look at what accepts/loses an electron/proton and that will tell you which ones act as an acid or base! You could also memorize certain patterns like how anything that starts with h is generally an acid and anything ending with oh is usually a base (and the group 1 and group 2 patterns)

[cadytran1K]

For me, I go off the name of the compound. Acids usually have a H at the beginning of the name, so I typically identify the acids first and then go off from there.

[Alison Perkins 2B]

A Bronstead Acid, or just an acid, is a species that can donate a proton. A Lewis Acid is a species that accepts an electron pair.
A Bronstead Base, or just a base, is a species that accepts a proton. A Lewis Base is one that donates an electron pair.

[Melissa Solis 1H]

It honestly all depends on which definition of acids and bases you're using.

Bronsted Acid: Able to donate a proton
Bronsted Base: Able to receive a proton
Lewis Acid: Electron pair acceptor
Lewis Base: Able to donate a pair of nonbonding electrons

[Keshav Patel 14B 2B]

Theres many different types of ways to define an acid and a base. A Lewis base and acid, the base being the one that donates electrons while the acid is the one accepting. By the Bronsted definition, the acids are the ones releasing an H+ and bases accepting an H+.

[205323697]

Why are bronsted acids and bases important? what do they do