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AP®︎/College Chemistry
Course: AP®︎/College Chemistry > Unit 12
Lesson 1: Acids, bases, and pH- Arrhenius acids and bases
- Arrhenius acids and bases
- pH, pOH, and the pH scale
- Brønsted-Lowry acids and bases
- Brønsted–Lowry acids and bases
- Autoionization of water
- Water autoionization and Kw
- Definition of pH
- Acid strength, anion size, and bond energy
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Autoionization of water
Autoionization of water into hydronium and hydroxide ions.
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- How many times per minute does the hydrogen bond break and create again?(25 votes)
- The time scale is about 10¹¹ times per second.(29 votes)
- at 6.00 pm, why 1 litre of of h2o is 56 moles of h2o?? we know that 22.4 litre of any substance = 1 mole of that substance.(4 votes)
- 1 mole per 22.4L is for an ideal gas at 0 C
Water has a density of ~1g/mL so 1L is approx 1000g.
Water has a molar mass of ~18g/mol
1000g / 18g/mol = ~56 moles(31 votes)
- does the water molecule also split up in hydrolysis and is this essential for the reaction to take place?(10 votes)
- hydrolysis means splitting of water. So yes it does split and is essential to the reaction(5 votes)
- is there a way to make it more likely for water to auto ionize?(5 votes)
- Yes, if one were to add acids or water, they would ionize the water which would then propagate. For example an acid would donate a proton to a water molecule, which would shortly thereafter shake it off onto another molecule in a chain and soforth.(12 votes)
- So when I'm drinking water i'm not only drinking H2O molecules but also hydronium and hydroxide molecules ? Or does the concentration depend on other factors ?(5 votes)
- The concentration varies slightly with temperature. Your body is almost two-thirds water, so you also contain hydronium and hydroxide ions.(6 votes)
- How do you know what order to put the letters in?
For example, Sal wrote H3O and then OH, why not HO? It matters what order you put the letters in, right? Thanks!(5 votes)- There are conventions about what order to write the letters in, but for something like hydroxyl the order really doesn't matter.
However, it is incorrect to leave off the charge — HO (or OH) is free radicle not an ion and is not what you meant!
HO⁻ and ⁻OH are used and generally acceptable, as is OH⁻. In general, keeping the charge next to the atom where most of the charge will be found is clearer, but for the really common ions like hydroxyl most people know what is meant so it doesn't really matter.
To learn more about these conventions, I strongly encourage you to work through the Chemistry material on KhanAcademy:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry
That may look like a lot of work, but you've probably watched many of the videos already under "Chemistry of life". A deep understanding of chemistry is essential to anyone interested in modern biological sciences or medicine, so I really encourage you to take the time to work though all of the chemistry material.(4 votes)
- Ok so i'm pretty confused but i have a question. So aroundSal says that the proton is added to the other molecule's hydrogen or something like that but if a proton is added to another hydrogen wouldn't it become helium because if an element gains a proton or loses a proton it would become a totally different element. Sorry for the lame and confusing question but please help as i'm struggling. Thank you 3:10(3 votes)
- This oxygen in the water is forming a new coordinate bond with the proton, the H+, to form a new chemical species called the hydronium ion. Creating a new chemical species like this is a chemical reaction. A proton adding to another proton is indeed helium but that is a nuclear reaction called nuclear fusion which isn't what is happening here. Nuclear reactions like that require immense amount of energy which isn't present in water here. Hope this helps.(6 votes)
- During the auto-ionization of H20 does it ever happen that the Hydrogen (who left its electron behind separating from one H20 molecule),decides to go back to the same H20 molecule it just left? or does it always move to another H20 molecule to form H3O+ ?
Thanks!(4 votes)- It could happen, but my feeling is that it is very unlikely. All the molecules in a liquid are constantly moving and the resulting HO¯ and H₃O⁺ probably move away from each other soon after the proton transfer.
Note that in neutral water the [HO¯]=[H₃O⁺]=10⁻⁷ M. In contrast, if you work it out the [H₂O]=55.5 M. So the ~1 in a billion H₃O⁺ that just got created is much more likely to transfer the extra proton to another H₂O rather than back to its "partner" (or any other) HO¯.(5 votes)
- Does the concentration of the H3O+ ions increase or decrease once it reaches 1x10^-7 M?(3 votes)
- If you are refering to the autoionization of water, it wont.
Here is my reasoning:
Kw= 1.0*10^-14
Water is neutral, so [OH-]=[H3O+]
Kw=[OH-]*[H3O+] so Kw=([H3O+])^2 or Kw=([OH-])^2
By the following reasoning, we can conclude that [H3O+]=sqrt([Kw]) so, sqrt(1.0*10^-14)=1.0*10^-7 which is equivalent to pH=7
Assuming that the water is neutral at 25º degrees celcius, according to Le Chatteliers principle, a system will react to counter changes to its equilibrium, so as the system is already at its equilibrium, it will not react.
Be aware that when I say "the system will not react", it is theoretically not right, because chemical equilibrium is dynamic.
Sorry for the too long answer, hope this helps!(4 votes)
- is it correct to say that the dissociation of nacl in water is same as the hydrolysis of nacl?......also in the salt/acid/base hydrolysis process,if the water molecule is not ionized will it still be called hydrolysis?(4 votes)
- hydrolysis involves breaking of covalent bonds, thus NaCl is not hydrolysed. Water molecule is always hydrolysed when it is involved in hydrolyis.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] I have two water
molecules right over here, and typically the water molecules, as they interact with each other,
they form these hydrogen bonds that's due to the polarity
of the water molecule. We've talked a lot about that, they slide past each other, these
hydrogen bonds give them all these neat properties of water. But chemistry is much
messier, than sometimes our diagrams or explanations show. There's all sorts of crazy interactions. All of these things are bumping into each other in all different ways. And not only are the molecules bumping in different ways, but any given moment, the electrons are jumping around and, on average, they might spend more time, they might spend more
time around the oxygen forming a partially
negative charge at that end, and then a partially positive charge near the hydrogens, because the
hydrogens are having their electrons hogged away from them. In fact this is what
forms the hydrogen bonds. But there's always
constantly change there. Because they're all just jumping around. It's all very probabilistic. And so you can imagine, under
just the right conditions, one oxygen or one water
molecule, might just graze this water molecule
in the right way, that these electrons,
that these electrons, get close enough to nab,
to nab this hydrogen. But it doesn't nab the entire hydrogen. It doesn't nab the
nucleus and the electron, and a typical hydrogen atom,
a typical hydrogen atom, actually let me draw it. A typical hydrogen atom is just a proton, is just a proton in the nucleus. Actually the most typical
isotope of hydrogen has no neutron, so it's just
a proton in the nucleus. And an electron orbiting around it. So this right over here is positive, actually maybe I'll draw it that way, you have a positive
proton, and then you have a negative electron, you
have a negative electron orbiting around it. Actually it's more of a orbital. So it's really this electron
is jumping all around it. But you could imagine,
these electrons in this covalent bond, they were already being, these we already being hogged, these were already being
hogged by this oxygen, in fact that's what was forming this partial negative charge over here, and the partial positive charge over here. So these would be attracted to this partial positive charge. Remember there, you
have a partial negative charge over here, this is
actually what's forming the hydrogen bond. And it actually could bond
to the hydrogen proton, while both of these
electrons, including one of these electrons that used to be part of this hydrogen, or you could consider used to be part of that hydrogen, are nabbed, are nabbed by this oxygen. And in this circumstance,
and I'm not saying that this happens all the time, but under just the right conditions, this actually can happen,
and what would result, so let me, what result is, this thing over here, instead of just being a neutral water molecule, would look like this. So you have your oxygen, you have, not only your two hydrogens now, you now have a third hydrogen. You now have a third hydrogen. So you have these two covalent bonds, these two covalent bonds, this lone pair. And now this lone pair,
which I have circled in blue, is now being shared with
this hydrogen proton. This electron right over
here of the hydrogen got nabbed by this oxygen. So now you've formed
another covalent bond. And now this character over here, he's lost the hydrogen proton, but he's kept all of the electrons. So this character over
here's gonna look like this. You're gonna have your oxygen, and now it's only going to only be bonded to one hydrogen, only
bonded to one hydrogen. Has these two original lone pairs. These two original lone
pairs right over here. And then took both of the electrons from this covalent bond. And took both of the electrons
from this covalent bond. And so it has another lone pair. So this molecule gained just a proton without getting any electrons. So if you do that, you're
now going to have a net positive charge
for this one over here. And this molecule over
here, actually let me, let me, ugh, let me just write it. I wanna write it a little bit neater. And this molecule over here, so we have this molecule plus this one, this one lost a proton, without any other changes. So it now has a negative charge. So just like that, you
went from two neutral water molecules, to two ions. And these ions, this one over here, the one on the left, the one that is now H three O, H three O, H three O, and it now has a positive charge, positive charge, actually I put that O in a different color. H three, H three O. It's a positive charge, this
is called the "hydronium ion." Hydronium, hydronium. And this one over here, that is OH minus, so it's OH, O, let me
get the colors right. OH minus. This is called the
"hydroxide ion," or since it's negative you can
just call it an "anion." I'll just write "hydroxide," hydroxide, hydroxide ion right over there. So you have this water
and it's just kind of automatically under the
right circumstances, this isn't happening a lot, but under the right circumstances, you could have one of the water molecules nabbing just the hydrogen proton, from
another water molecule. And that water molecule
is gonna keep both of the electrons, and then they ionize. They have autoionized,
and this phenomenon, this is called "the
autoionization of water." Let me write that down,
it's a nice big word. Autoionization. Autoionization of, of water. And I really want to make
it clear what happens. This hydrogen over here,
that you can imagine at first was a proton and an electron, the typical isotope of hydrogen actually does not have a neutron. But then this electron got swiped. This electron, this electron
was part of this bond and it gets swiped away, and so all you're left is with this proton, and this proton goes to this other water molecule, giving that a positive charge. And so you might say,
"Well how frequently would "I find hydronium ions in water?" Well the concentration,
let me actually draw a little tub of water
here, let's say this is a liter of water. This is a liter, this is a liter of water. The concentration of
hydronium in typical water, the concentration of H three O, the concentration of H
three O in typical water, and you put brackets around something to denote "concentration," is one times ten to the negative seven molar. And molar, this just
means "moles per liter." This is the same thing as one times ten to the negative seven moles, moles per liter. And now you might be saying,
"Well, what's a mole?" Well I encourage you to watch the video on what a mole is, but a mole is a quantity. It's like saying, "a dozen." But it's a much larger, a dozen is equal to 12 of something. A mole is roughly equal
to, let me write it. A mole is approximately equal to 6.02 times ten to the 23rd. Ten to the 23rd of something. And you're typically
talking about molecules. A mole of a substance means approximately 6.022, it actually keeps going, times ten to the 23rd molecules of that thing. So you might say, "Hey, one
times ten to the negative seven "times 6.02 times ten to the 23rd, "that would still get
us," well let's see, this, let me actually, let me write it down. One times ten to the negative seven moles per liter, times, times, I'll do it this way. Times six, I'll just go
with six, since we're gonna go approximately. So approximately, six
times ten to the 23rd. Six times 23rd molecules,
molecules per mole. Molecules per mole, well these two would cancel out, and you would
multiply these two numbers, you would get six times, let's see. Ten to the negtive seven
times ten to the 23rd, that's still gonna be
ten to the 16th power, molecules per liter. Molecules per liter, so
your first reaction is, "Oh my God!" "I'm gonna have six times,"
or roughly, I'll say roughly. "Approximately six times ten to the 16th "molecules of hydronium in this?" "That's a lot, we should
see it all the time." But we have to remind ourselves. There's just a lot of molecules
of water in there as well. In fact, a liter of water is roughly, so one liter of H two O, contains, contains approximately 56, 56 moles, moles of H two O. So one way to think about it is, "I have one, I have one times," and if I'm thinking about a liter of water, I have, I'll do it over here, "I have one times ten
to the negative seven "moles of, moles of H three O for every, "for every 56 moles, for every 56 moles, "moles of H two O." So if you look at this ratio,
then you start to appreciate. The ratio of one times ten
to the negative seven to 56. Let me do it down here. So this is the same thing as, one times ten to the negative seven to 56, is the same thing as,
let's just multiply both side times, or the numerator
and the denominator, times ten to the seventh. So if we do that, this
is the same thing as one, one, the ratio of
hydronium to regular water, to H two O is gonna be one
to, let's see if I multiply 56, times ten to the
seventh, I'm gonna have five, let me get, write
in that same color. I'm gonna have five six,
then I'm gonna have, I'm gonna throw seven
zeros at the end of it. Let me do that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So the ratio of hydronium
to regular H two O is one for ever five
hundred and sixty million. So even though you might
say, "Oh wow, look." "We're gonna have a
huge number of molecules "of hydronium in this liter of water." For every one of them, you actually have roughly five hundred sixty
million molecules of H two O. So that should give you
an appreciation for the fact that this isn't that typical. In fact, you're gonna
see this much more often than you see this over here. In fact, if you wanted
to make these arrows kind of show which direction
the equilibrium sits in, it's actually much further,
it's actually much further to the left. So we could make this arrow much bigger. But it also gives you an appreciation for just how many
molecules you have sitting in a liter, in a liter of water.