3
Acids and Bases
BRONSTED-LOWRY THEORY (1923)
According to this theory, acids are proton (H+) donors and bases are proton acceptors.
HCl + H2O 
H3O+ + Cl−
HCl donates a proton and H2O accepts it. So HCl is acid and H2O is base.
Bare proton (i.e., H+ only) does exist in H2O. It is associated with water molecules i.e., is solvated,
H+ + xH2O |
[H(H2O)x]+ |
Solvated proton is simply denoted as H3O+, which is called ‘Hydronium ion”. However, hydration number of a proton may be 1, 2, 3, 4 etc., which may be represented as H3O+, H5O2+, H9O4+ etc.
Conjugate acid-base pair
When a substance donates a proton it is converted to a base, the conjugate ...
Get Basic Concepts of Inorganic Chemistry, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
