I'm A Very Acidic Person.

During Chemistry today, I was appalled by how little I know about the very foundations of Chemistry. I'm not talking ethics and morals and theories. I mean the common knowledge, like what reacts to make a salt, what a base is, what colour a certain substance turns in a certain indicator.

So, this post is going to be a little smidge of all that, plus some stuff on Acid-Base theories which I just didn't get today and need to clear up in my head.

Now then. What is an acid, boys and girls?

Something with a pH less than 7.

And what is an alkali, children?

Something with a pH greater than 7.

So who can tell me what neutral is?

Something with a pH of 7, like water, miss.

I think that ^ is a pretty good interpretation of how I felt today... five year old's could have out smarted me.

But oh well, it's never too late to learn.

Metal Oxides and Metal Hydroxides are all bases. And to complicate things further, all alkali's are bases, but not all bases are alkali. Like this...

Yay.

There's a couple of equations I need to learn...

acid + base --> salt + water

AKA:

That basically means that the Hydrogen in an Acid will react with the Hydroxide in an Alkali to produce water, which is neutral.

An example? Well, just think of Sulphuric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide forming Sodium Sulphate and Water.... the Sodium Sulphate is the salt.

Another formula:

acid + metal --> salt + hydrogen

Like Sulphuric Acid and Magnesium will form Magnesium Sulphate (the salt again) and Hydrogen. The more reactive the metal, the more hydrogen is produced and the quicker it happens. But there are some weakling-little metals, like Copper, that are less reactive than hydrogen, so they don't react at all.

Also, Acids and Carbonates will always produce Carbon Dioxide (and salt and water).

A note on reversible reactions: provided all the reactants and products are kept in a closed environment, they will eventually reach a dynamic equilibrium. This means that there will eventually come a time when the relative (%) quantities of the reactants and products will reach a balance and stay there. It's called a 'dynamic' equilibrium because the reaction is still going on. However, the reaction is happening at the same rate, so they cancel each other out.

Changing temperature or pressure can effect a reactions equilibrium, but a catalyst makes no difference.

I know I said I was going to talk about Acid-Base theories, but this post has gone on for too long and I'm past the point of caring :)