Salts and Solution pH

[Lexi Tempera 3B]

Hi,

I've come across the learning objective:

Explain why salts of weak bases produce acidic solutions and salts of weak acids produce basic solutions.

I'm thinking this is because salts of weak acids are formed from the anion of a strong acid, which dissociates fully, and the cation of weak base, which does not.

Is this correct?

[Carlotta Gherardi 2J]

Hi,

I think its easier to think of it as: salts of weak bases contain the strong conjugate acids of these bases (i.e. the conjugate of the weak base NH3 would be NH4+, a salt containing NH4+ - given that its a strong acid - would be acidic), and vice versa, salts of weak acids contain the strong conjugate bases of the acids.

Hope this helps!

[Narin Maisha 2H]

An easier way to perceive it is that an acidic solution produced through salts contains a strong acid, which would contain the weak bases. The opposite of this also hold true, where a basic solution is made up of a strong base and it's conjugate weak acid.