Ph Scale Essay

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What is a Ph Scale? A pH scale is the measure of acidity or alkalinity of a substance that is water soluble. On a pH scale the substance is rated with a pH value, which is a number from one to fourteen, with seven as the neutral point. If the value of such substance is below seven then this concludes the substance has acidity which increases as the pH value decreases. One on a pH scale is the most acidic. If the pH value is above seven this indicates that the substance contains alkalinity which will increase the higher a pH value is, fourteen being the most alkalinic on the scale.
The scale in Ph scale isn’t a linear scale like measurements when two adjacent values have the same difference. The scale is a logarithmic scale which means two adjacent values increase or decrease by a factor of ten. For example, a pH of two is ten times more than a pH of three, and one hundred times more acidic than a pH of four. This system was invented …show more content…

All this is controlled by hydrogen ions in water, a small number of these molecules will split up. Some of the molecules lose their hydrogen and become hydroxide ions. The non-hydrogen ions join up with water molecules to form a hydronium ion. This can be referred to as (H30+). To make things simpler, hydronium ions are referred as hydrogen ions or (H+). In normal, pure water, there is an equal number of hydrogen ions and hydroxide ions. Therefore water is neither acidic or alkaline. For a substance to be acidic it donates hydrogen ions into dissolved water. This causes the balance of hydrogen and hydroxide ions to shift. The hydrogen ions are therefore multiplied which causes the solution to be mostly hydrogen ions. When this occurs the substance is acidic. Alkaline is also called base or basic which is a substance that accepts hydrogen ions. When alkali is dissolved in water the base “soaks up” hydrogen ions, therefore the result is a solution with a lot of hydroxide

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