[ZeeZeeGooLoo]

Just touching up on what PKa actually is:

We added a small amount of acetic acid to a large amount of water: water is the solvent for this reaction. Therefore, in the course of the reaction, the concentration of water (approximately 55.6 mol/L) changes very little, and can be treated as constant.  The acid dissociation constant, or Ka, for acetic acid is defined as:


I was wondering what the 10-5 means and why the answer actually ends up as a multiplication instead of a solid answer? is it because it's a constant? What does the answer effectively mean?

Peace and Love,

Zee.

[Borek]

It is a just a scientific notation.

[ZeeZeeGooLoo]

How do you obtain an actual number from this equation? I don't get how to add them together. .

(same picture as the last question yes)

Thank you.

Peace and Love,

Zee.

[Borek]

I guess it is basically the same question as before - if so, please don't start a new thread.

Have you checked what a scientific notation is?

x is a multiplication sign here.

[ZeeZeeGooLoo]

It isn't exactly the same question, I just want to know how you obtain that number as in how do you multiply the compounds?

[Arkcon]

You don't multiply the compounds.  The brackets are chemical shorthand for "concentration of".  So they wrote that it for you, expecting you to -- plug in -- the numbers for concentration. 

P.S.  I hope you don't mind my merging your two similar topics and changing the title.  This makes it easier for everyone to help you with all your questions.

[ZeeZeeGooLoo]

No, thank for you doing that actually. The concentration of? Isn't that mass per unit volume? How can I find that out from a compound? And why is the answer 1.75 x 10-5 as in how was it calculated?

[kriggy]

delete me plz

[ZeeZeeGooLoo]

Dw, it's cool, I know now.