(Photo by Evissa)
During the two recent Mastery Workshops on Organic Chemistry & Mole Calculations, i realized that many students have mentioned that they find the chapters on Acids, Bases & Salts as well as Qualitative Analysis difficult. Many have said that the content is pretty heavy for this particular chapter, and they can’t seems to be able to answer the application-type questions in exams, especially the one from Qualitative Analysis
There are several others that don’t even understand where acids & bases are seen in our everyday lives.
Let us start the discussion by observing where they are found in our environment.
Acids & Bases are two classes of chemicals that are widely used in industry and frequently encountered in daily living. The following are some of the examples:
– Lemon juice and orange juice contain citric acid
– Car batteries contain sulphuric acid
– Ammonia (a soluble base – thus known as an alkali) is used for making fertilizers and explosives
– Sodium Hydroxide (another soluble base – thus an alkali) is used for making soap
– Bases are generally used in a range of household cleansers including washing powders, oven and drain cleaners.
In the next few posts, we will discuss more on the properties of Acids & Bases as well as look into several exam-based application questions.
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