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Where do strong acids and bases fall on the pH scale?

Answer 1

Acids are lower, bases are higher on the pH scale.

Moles/liter, or the concentration in molarity, should be provided when calculating the pH of a strong acid or base.

Since strong acids and bases completely disassociate in water you can take the #-log# of the molarity. For example, if you were asked to find the pH of a .058 M solution of #HCl# you would enter #-log(.058)#

It is evident that its pH would be 1.23.

You do the same thing for strong bases, but you have to remember that the answer that you will get will be #pOH#. To get the pH you simply subtract the #pOH# from 14.

For example, if you have a #NaOH# solution that has a molarity of .063 you take the #-log(.063)# and get a #pOH# of 1.20.

#14-1.20=12.79#

You can see from that data that basic solutions have a higher pH and acidic solutions have a lower pH.

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Answer 2

Natalie Anton

Strong acids have pH values close to 0, while strong bases have pH values close to 14.

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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.