week 10 sapling #1

[Lucy Wang 2J]

In aqueous solution, classify these compounds as strong acids, weak acids, strong bases or weak bases.

How do you tell if an acid is strong or not?

[Arieanne De Guzman 2J]

It is best to memorize all the common strong acids because pretty much everything else would be considered weak. The common strong acids (according to the textbook) are HBr, HCl, HI, HNO3, HClO4, HClO3, H2SO4. It would be helpful to first identify which compounds are the acids and which are the bases, and you can usually tell by the formula. For example, in inorganic acids, the acidic hydrogen atom is often the first element in the molecular formula (like HCl, HNO3), and in organic molecules, the acidic hydrogen atom is given at the end (like CH2COOH). From here, you could refer to the strong acids and essentially deduce that anything not on the list is weak. Hopefully this helps!

In aqueous solution, classify these compounds as strong acids, weak acids, strong bases or weak bases.

How do you tell if an acid is strong or not?

[Heather Szeszulski 1I]

The best way honestly is to just memorize them and then go from there. Strong bases contain OH.

[Evelyn Silva 3J]

Also Table J.1 in the textbook shows a list of common aqueous strong acids and bases. I recommend memorizing them and it will make it a lot easier.

[Ryan_Kien_1L]

Strong Acids tend to be one's with 7 valence electrons with some exceptions and strong bases tend to be ones in the 1st and 2nd row with few exceptions. The best way is just to memorize them since there's only a few.

[Sedge Greenlee]

A strong acid can also be identified by its bond strength, so larger atoms generally have weaker bonds and thus are stronger acids (more willing to dissociate)