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Which Ph Value Indicates The Most Basic Solution

The pH Scale

One qualitative measure of the strength of an acid or a base solution is the pH scale, which is based on the concentration of the hydronium (or hydrogen) ion in aqueous solution.

[pH = -log[H^+] nonumber ]

or

[pH = -log[H_3O^+] nonumber ]

Figure (PageIndex{1}) illustrates this relationship, along with some examples of various solutions. Because hydrogen ion concentrations are generally less than one (for example (1.3 times 10^{-3},M)), the log of the number will be a negative number. To make pH even easier to work with, pH is defined as the negative log of ([H_3O^+]), which will give a positive value for pH.

Figure (PageIndex{1}): The relationaship between [H+] and (pH) values for several common materials.

A neutral (neither acidic nor basic) solution has a pH of 7. A pH below 7 means that a solution is acidic, with lower values of pH corresponding to increasingly acidic solutions. A pH greater than 7 indicates a basic solution, with higher values of pH corresponding to increasingly basic solutions. Thus, given the pH of several solutions, you can state which ones are acidic, which ones are basic, and which are more acidic or basic than others. These are summarized in Table (PageIndex{1}.

Table (PageIndex{1}): Acidic, Basic and Neutral pH Values

Classification Relative Ion Concentrations pH at 25 °C acidic [H+] > [OH−] pH < 7 neutral [H+] = [OH−] pH = 7 basic [H+] < [OH−] pH > 7

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Figure (PageIndex{2}) lists the pH of several common solutions. The most acidic among the listed solutions is 1 M HCl with the lowest pH value (0.0): battery acid is the next most acidic solution with a pH value of 0.3. The most basic is 1M NaOH solution with the highest pH value of 14.0. Notice that some biological fluids (stomach acid and urine) are nowhere near neutral. You may also notice that many food products are slightly acidic. They are acidic because they contain solutions of weak acids. If the acid components of these foods were strong acids, the food would likely be inedible.

Figure (PageIndex{2}): A Plot of pH versus [H+] for Some Common Aqueous Solutions. Although many substances exist in a range of pH values (indicated in parentheses), they are plotted using typical values.

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