Weak acid vs base
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Weak acid vs base
How do we determine whether a substance is a weak acid or base just from looking at it? For strong acids and bases we just memorize them, and this can be helpful when determining whether a salt is acidic or basic, but when given a simple acid or base that is not a salt, is there a way to figure out whether it is an acid or base?
Re: Weak acid vs base
Anything that is not a strong acid or base is considered weak. By memorizing the strong acids and bases you should know how to classify most compounds. When given a simple acid or base that is not a salt I determine whether the compound is an acid or base by looking at the formal charge, lone pair electrons, and hydrogen atoms.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
If you memorize all the strong acids and bases, you'll be able to deduce which ones are weak when given in a problem.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
We know from memorizing the strong acids and strong bases. There are fewer strong acids/bases than weak acids/bases, so I would recommend memorizing the strong acids/bases and then anything that isn't strong is weak.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
you would need to remember the strong acids and bases and know that besides those, other acids and bases are weak.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
Besides the strong acids/bases that we are to memorize, everything else is assumed to be a weak acid/base.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
I would memorize strong acids and bases and anything else would be considered a weak acid or base.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
Like everyone else said, it's best to memorize but some things that can be helpful are, for example, that any acid with a COOH group in it is a weak acid!
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Re: Weak acid vs base
I think it's the easiest to memorize the list of strong acids and bases, and note that organic acids are generally considered to be weak.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
If we have memorized the list of strong acids/bases, then we can assume that it is weak if it is not on that list. Although, there are some common weak acids/bases that you may want to look over. But, that is the way I thought about this.
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Re: Weak acid vs base
Any acid or base that is not classified as strong can be considered weak. So if you memorize all of the strong acids and bases then you should be good. :)
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