Lewis Acid

[Daniel Hernandez 1G]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are Lewis acids accepting of electrons which means they produce the proton? Is proton production unique to an aquatic environment?

[SelenaDahabreh1D]

I believe you are right with respect that Lewis acids accept electrons. With regards to the proton, I believe that acids produce hydrogen ions (which would be the protons) in solution because it reacts with the water molecules by giving a proton to them. This site speaks more on this: https://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/ac ... ories.html

[Neel Bonthala 2G]

Yes, Lewis Acids accept the electron pair! By accepting the electron pair, they use it to form a coordinate covalent bond between the electron pair donor and the proton. I'm not entirely sure if this is unique to an aqueous environment, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was! Remember Dr. Lavelle's example with HCl. It only became an acid and gave up its proton in an aqueous environment, but not in its gas phase.

[Nan_Guan_1L]

Yes you are definitely right that Lewis acid is an electron acceptor. I think for the second part about proton production, you are right as well. Dr. Lavelle gave an example about HCl in class. He said that HCl only exhibits Lewis acid characteristics in aqueous form. So i guess this also depends on the form the substance is in.

[Bella Bursulaya 3G]

Hi! Yep, Lewis acids accept electrons! Acids will have a different pH depending on what they are dissolved in. Remember that it is not HCl that is acidic, but it acts as an acid, meaning that in water there will actually be very little amounts of HCl and more H+ and Cl- ions. In another substance, that won't necessarily be the case and it may hold on to the H+ ion more tightly, causing it to be a weak acid. In the scope of this course, I think we only focus on water being the solvent because that is typically what we see in biological systems and in chemistry.