How could you determine the acidity of household items?
Indicators
How do Indicators work?
What types of indicators?
Litmus Paper
Red cabbage Water
Methyl Orange
Indicators change colour based on their pH, indicators are themselves either weak acids or bases, meaning they either contain hydrogen ions (H+) for acids, or hydroxide ions (OH-) for bases,
Taste
Corrosiveness
What is acidity?
Why are acids and bases corrosive?
Acidic
Alkaline
How do bases taste?
How do acidic things taste?
Acids are typically sour.
Bases are typically bitter.
why do we use these indicators
how to calculate concentration of acid
Where are these indicators used
Titration
What is titration?
Acidity is a measure of how much acid is in something. Acids are anything with a pH value of below 7.
What is pH?
How can this be tested?
Is this always applicable?
Acids and bases are commonly corrosive or toxic and in general inedible, therefore, taste cannot be used a reliable or suitable method to determine acidity.
There are many factors that can affect the taste of something without necessarily affecting how acidic or alkaline they are, so taste would not be a suitable or reliable method of determining the acidity of household products.
Why?
Acids taste sour because acids dissolve in saliva and release hydrogen ions (H+), the hydrogen ions cause the brain to perceive a taste of sourness.
Why?
Bases taste bitter because they dissolve in saliva and release hydroxide ions (OH-), the hydroxide ions cause the brain to perceive a taste of bitterness.
pH essentially shows how many hydrogen ions (H+) a substance can release. A substance with a pH value below 7 means it has the potential to release hydrogen ions (H+), the lower the number, the more hydrogen ions (H+) a substance can release.
Highly acidic or alkaline substances are highly reactive, meaning that when they come into contact with other substances, they break them down into salts and quickly destroy the original material.
Acids with a pH equal or below 2 and bases with a pH equal or greater than 12.5 are corrosive, If a metal were used, such as aluminium foil, the pH of acids or bases can be determined to be below or above 2 for acids or below or above 12.5 for bases by observing if the acid or base is able to corrode the aluminium.
Is this a suitable method of testing?
While this might be able to show if a substance is below a pH of 2 or above a pH of 12.5, it doesn't show whether the substance is an acid or a base, this method also doesn't show exactly where the substance might fall on the pH scale, so just how acidic or just how alkaline something is can't be determined, therefore this method is not suitable for determining the acidity of items.
All of these indicators show a clear change in colour at different pH values.
All of these indicators are commonly used in lab experiments since they all clearly show colour differences depending on the pH value of the substance they are placed in, they are all also uncomplicated to use.
Titration is the process of testing how much base or acid is needed to neutralise an acidic or alkaline solution with a known molarity, this process can then be used to determine the unknown molarity/molar concentration or essentially the concentration of the acid or base within the other solution.
Why is titration useful?
Titration is useful since it is an extremely accurate method of testing molar concentration and can be done with very little initial information, this makes it both convenient while also being accurate and reliable.