Acids & Bases - Chemistry

Strong & Weak vs. pHAcids & Bases 16A common mistake is to confuse pH with strong orweak acids/bases. For example, if I tell you asolution has a pH of 5.0, most of you wouldincorrectly assume that it is a weak acid. Maybe,maybe not.A pH of 5.0 tells you that it is a weakly acidicsolution. This solution might have been madefrom a medium to considerable amount of a weakacid, or a very small amount of a strong acid.Without knowing the concentration (or amountand nature) of the acid used (not just the resultingH + concentration or pH), you can’t tell whether it iscomposed of a strong or weak acid.It is true that solutions with very low pH’s (forexample, −1.0) can pretty much only be composedof strong acids.So you need to be very careful with your languagein dealing with strong & weak acids and solutionsthat are strongly or weakly acidic.