Acids and Bases part 3

Weak Acids/Bases

The Ka Expression

Ka is an expression similar to Kc and Kp that is used for weak acids (and possibly weak bases). If we write
out the dissociation of a weak acid:

HA represents any weak acid, it's just a general term that is often used.

We can write out an expression for K a i.e. the concentration of the products divided by the concentration
of the reactants:

Get used to writing out Ka expression as you will do this a lot and it's a very easy mark.

Assumptions

To simplify matters for calculations, we can make two assumptions.

Assumption 1: [HA] start and [HA] equilibrium are the same

This is because the weak acid doesn't dissociate much (probably <1%). This means whatever value they
give you in the question for the concentration of the acid, you can assume that it is the same value at
equilibrium and use it in the Ka expression.

Assumption 2: all the H+ ions must come from the acid i.e. [H+] = [A-]

This is because water hardly dissociates so will contribute very little H+ ions.

The Ka expression is simplified to:

 in exam questions they often ask you to write out the K a expression followed by a calculation in the
next part of the question. For the first part you must write the Ka expression out fully and NOT square
[H+]. However, when it comes to the calculation you will have to square [H+].

Example:

Calculate the pH of a 0.5 moldm-3 ethanoic acid solution with a Ka value of 1.75 x 10-5 moldm-3.

Firstly, write out the Ka expression:

You are trying to work out pH so you need to calculate the [H+].

We know Ka and the concentration of the acid (the bottom line of the Ka expression). We can then simply
rearrange the expression for [H+]:

[H+]2 = Ka x [CH3COOH]

From this expression you can put in the numbers for Ka and [CH3COOH], multiply them, then take the
square root to give [H+]:

[H+]2 = 1.75x10-5 x 0.5 = 8.75x10-6

8.75x10-6 = 0.00295 moldm-3

We can then put 0.00295 into pH = -log10[H+] to get the pH, which should be 2.53.

pKa
Another scale often used is pKa. This scale gives very similar information to pH scale i.e the lower the pK a
value the more acidic it is. Or the higher the Ka value, the more acidic it is.

You can use this equation, which looks very like the pH equation (just substitute H for K a and you have the
pH equation):

pKa = -log10Ka