STRONG AND WEAK ACIDS
This page explains the terms strong and weak as applied to
acids. As a part of this it defines and explains what is meant by
pH, Ka and pKa.
It is important that you don't confuse the words strong and weak
with the terms concentrated and dilute.
As you will see below, the strength of an acid is related to the
proportion of it which has reacted with water to produce ions.
The concentration tells you about how much of the original acid
is dissolved in the solution.
It is perfectly possible to have a concentrated solution of a weak
acid, or a dilute solution of a strong acid. Read on . . .
Strong acids
Explaining the term "strong acid"
We are going to use the Bronsted-Lowry definition of an acid.
Note: If you don't know what the Bronsted-Lowry theory of
acids is, you should read about theories of acids and bases
on another page in this section. You don't need to spend
time reading about Lewis acids and bases for the purposes
of this present page.
Use the BACK button on your browser when you are ready
to return to this page.
When an acid dissolves in water, a proton (hydrogen ion) is
transferred to a water molecule to produce a hydroxonium ion
and a negative ion depending on what acid you are starting
from.
In the general case . . .
These reactions are all reversible, but in some cases, the acid is
so good at giving away hydrogen ions that we can think of the
reaction as being one-way. The acid is virtually 100% ionised.
For example, when hydrogen chloride dissolves in water to
make hydrochloric acid, so little of the reverse reaction happens
that we can write:
At any one time, virtually 100% of the hydrogen chloride will
have reacted to produce hydroxonium ions and chloride ions.
Hydrogen chloride is described as a strong acid.
A strong acid is one which is virtually 100% ionised in solution.
Other common strong acids include sulphuric acid and nitric
acid.
You may find the equation for the ionisation written in a
simplified form:
This shows the hydrogen chloride dissolved in the water splitting
to give hydrogen ions in solution and chloride ions in solution.
This version is often used in this work just to make things look
easier. If you use it, remember that the water is actually
involved, and that when you write H+(aq) what you really mean is
a hydroxonium ion, H3O+.
Note: You should find out what your examiners prefer on
this. You are unlikely to find this from your syllabus, but
should look at recent exam papers and mark schemes. If
you are doing a UK-based exam and haven't got copies of
your syllabus and past papers, you should have! Follow this
link to find out how to get hold of them.
Strong acids and pH
pH is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in a
solution. Strong acids like hydrochloric acid at the sort of
concentrations you normally use in the lab have a pH around 0
to 1. The lower the pH, the higher the concentration of hydrogen
ions in the solution.
Defining pH
Note: If you are asked to define pH in an exam, simply write
down the expression in black. Never try to define it in words
- it is a waste of time, and you are too likely to miss
something out (like mentioning that the concentration has to
be in mol dm-3). In the expression, above, the square
brackets imply that, so you don't need to mention it.
Working out the pH of a strong acid
Suppose you had to work out the pH of 0.1 mol dm -3
hydrochloric acid. All you have to do is work out the
concentration of the hydrogen ions in the solution, and then use
your calculator to convert it to a pH.
With strong acids this is easy.
Hydrochloric acid is a strong acid - virtually 100% ionised. Each
mole of HCl reacts with the water to give 1 mole of hydrogen
ions and 1 mole of chloride ions
That means that if the concentration of the acid is 0.1 mol dm -3,
then the concentration of hydrogen ions is also 0.1 mol dm -3.
Use your calculator to convert this into pH. My calculator wants
me to enter 0.1, and then press the "log" button. Yours might
want you to do it in a different order. You need to find out!
log10 [0.1] = -1
But pH = - log10 [0.1]
- (-1) = 1
The pH of this acid is 1.
Note: If you want more examples to look at and to try
yourself (with fully worked solutions given), you may be
interested in my chemistry calculations book. This also
includes the slightly more confusing problem of converting
pH back into hydrogen ion concentration.
Weak acids
Explaining the term "weak acid"
A weak acid is one which doesn't ionise fully when it is dissolved
in water.
Ethanoic acid is a typical weak acid. It reacts with water to
produce hydroxonium ions and ethanoate ions, but the back
reaction is more successful than the forward one. The ions react
very easily to reform the acid and the water.
At any one time, only about 1% of the ethanoic acid molecules
have converted into ions. The rest remain as simple ethanoic
acid molecules.
Most organic acids are weak. Hydrogen fluoride (dissolving in
water to produce hydrofluoric acid) is a weak inorganic acid that
you may come across elsewhere.
Note: If you are interested in exploring organic acids
further, you will find them explained elsewhere on the site. It
might be a good idea to read the rest of this page first,
though.
If you want to know why hydrogen fluoride is a weak acid,
you can find out by following this link. But beware! The
explanation is very complicated and definitely not for the
faint-hearted!
These pages are in completely different parts of this site. If
you follow either link, use the BACK button to return to this
current page.
Comparing the strengths of weak acids
The position of equilibrium of the reaction between the acid and
water varies from one weak acid to another. The further to the
left it lies, the weaker the acid is.
Note: If you don't understand about position of equilibrium
follow this link before you go any further.
You are also going to need to know about equilibrium
constants, Kc for homogeneous equilibria. There is no point
in reading any more of this page unless you do!
If you follow either link, use the BACK button to return to this
current page.
The acid dissociation constant, Ka
You can get a measure of the position of an equilibrium by
writing an equilibrium constant for the reaction. The lower the
value for the constant, the more the equilibrium lies to the left.
The dissociation (ionisation) of an acid is an example of a
homogeneous reaction. Everything is present in the same phase
- in this case, in solution in water. You can therefore write a
simple expression for the equilibrium constant, Kc.
Here is the equilibrium again:
You might expect the equilibrium constant to be written as:
However, if you think about this carefully, there is something odd
about it.
At the bottom of the expression, you have a term for the
concentration of the water in the solution. That's not a problem except that the number is going to be very large compared with
all the other numbers.
In 1 dm3 of solution, there are going to be about 55 moles of
water.
Note: 1 mole of water weighs 18 g. 1 dm 3 of solution
contains approximately 1000 g of water. Divide 1000 by 18
to get approximately 55.
If you had a weak acid with a concentration of about 1 mol dm -3,
and only about 1% of it reacted with the water, the number of
moles of water is only going to fall by about 0.01. In other words,
if the acid is weak the concentration of the water is virtually
constant.
In that case, there isn't a lot of point in including it in the
expression as if it were a variable. Instead, a new equilibrium
constant is defined which leaves it out. This new equilibrium
constant is called Ka.
Note: The term for the concentration of water hasn't just
been ignored. What has happened is that the first
expression has been rearranged to give Kc (a constant)
times the concentration of water (another constant) on the
left-hand side. The product of those is then given the name
Ka.
You don't need to worry about this unless you really insist!
All you need to do is to learn the format of the expression for
Ka.
You may find the Ka expression written differently if you work
from the simplified version of the equilibrium reaction:
This may be written with or without state symbols.
It is actually exactly the same as the previous expression for Ka!
Remember that although we often write H+ for hydrogen ions in
solution, what we are actually talking about are hydroxonium
ions.
This second version of the Ka expression isn't as precise as the
first one, but your examiners may well accept it. Find out!
To take a specific common example, the equilibrium for the
dissociation of ethanoic acid is properly written as:
The Ka expression is:
If you are using the simpler version of the equilibrium . . .
. . . the Ka expression is:
Note: Because you are likely to come across both of these
versions depending on where you read about Ka, you would
be wise to get used to using either. For exam purposes,
though, use whichever your examiners seem to prefer.
The table shows some values of Ka for some simple acids:
Ka (mol dm-3)
acid
hydrofluoric acid
5.6 x 10-4
methanoic acid
1.6 x 10-4
ethanoic acid
1.7 x 10-5
hydrogen sulphide
8.9 x 10-8
These are all weak acids because the values for Ka are very
small. They are listed in order of decreasing acid strength - the
Ka values get smaller as you go down the table.
However, if you aren't very happy with numbers, that isn't
immediately obvious. Because the numbers are in two parts,
there is too much to think about quickly!
To avoid this, the numbers are often converted into a new,
easier form, called pKa.
An introduction to pKa
pKa bears exactly the same relationship to Ka as pH does to the
hydrogen ion concentration:
If you use your calculator on all the Ka values in the table above
and convert them into pKa values, you get:
acid
Ka (mol dm-3)
pKa
hydrofluoric acid
5.6 x 10-4
3.3
methanoic acid
1.6 x 10-4
3.8
ethanoic acid
1.7 x 10-5
4.8
hydrogen sulphide
8.9 x 10-8
7.1
Note: Notice that unlike Ka, pKa doesn't have any units.
Notice that the weaker the acid, the larger the value of pKa. It is
now easy to see the trend towards weaker acids as you go
down the table.
Remember this:


The lower the value for pKa, the stronger the acid.
The higher the value for pKa, the weaker the acid.
Note: If you need to know about Ka and pKa, you are quite
likely to need to be able to do calculations with them. You
will probably need to be able to calculate the pH of a weak
acid from its concentration and Ka or pKa. You may need to
reverse this and calculate a value for pKa from pH and
concentration. I can't help you with these calculations on this
site, but they are all covered in detail in my chemistry
calculations book.