Why is H2SO3 an acid when the oxygens have lone pairs?

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vuongnaomi1L
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Why is H2SO3 an acid when the oxygens have lone pairs?

Postby vuongnaomi1L » Sat Dec 12, 2020 4:16 pm

So H2SO3 is an acid, but the lewis structure (which I inserted below) has lone pairs to attract H+ ions from H2O, which will make OH- ions. So why is it an acid and not a base? What makes H2SO3 lose H+ ions but not attract them?
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Carolina 3E
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Re: Why is H2SO3 an acid when the oxygens have lone pairs?

Postby Carolina 3E » Sat Dec 12, 2020 8:48 pm

SO3^2- has 2 oxygens with a formal charge of -1 and those are the sites where H+ from H2O will form HSO3- or H2SO3. That makes SO3^2- a base.

Dylan_Nguyen_2C
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Joined: Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:41 pm

Re: Why is H2SO3 an acid when the oxygens have lone pairs?

Postby Dylan_Nguyen_2C » Sat Dec 12, 2020 10:26 pm

I think in this case the SO3^2- is the Lewis base because the oxygens bonded to the central atom have already donated an electron pair to accept an H+ atom. This would make H2SO4 the conjugate acid to an SO4^2- molecule that has already accepted an H+ proton, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though. Hope this helps


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