Home > Chemistry > Arrhenius Acids and Bases

What must an Arrhenius acid contain?

Answer 1

An Arrhenius acid is a substance whose aqueous solutions give rise to hydrogen ions or protons.

And thus we may identify as an acid a species that undergoes the following reaction with water...

#HX stackrel(H_2O)rarrH^+ + X^-#

The acidium ion, #H^+#, is an hypothetical species, and is more commonly represented as hydronium ion, i.e. #H_3O^+#, i.e.

#HX(aq) + H_2O(l) rarrH_3O^+ + X^-#

Both #H^+#, and #H_3O^+# are labels of convenience (the latter is more common these days. The actual acidium ion is PROBABLY a cluster of 3-4 water molecules with an EXTRA proton, #H^+#...to give #H_7O_3^(+)# or #H_9O_4^(+)#. The proton is presumed to tunnel from cluster to cluster, we write #H_3O^+# without loss of generality.

And so an Arrhenius acid must contain an hydrogen ion that can be transferred to solvent....

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Answer 2

Ellie Andrews

An Arrhenius acid must contain hydrogen ions (H⁺) when dissolved in water.

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.