[StonerPenguin]

I've forgotten a lot of stuff about acids and bases so I'd really appreciate some help 

1. Identify the acids and bases in each of the following reactions;
A. HBr + H2O --> Br- + H3O+
B. HClO + NaOH --> NaClO + H2O
My answer; A's acid is HBr and A's base is H2O; B's acid is HClO B's Base is NaOH

2. Which of the two reactions, A or B, in Q1 above is a neutralization reaction? Explain your answer.
My answer; Reaction B is a neutralization reaction because it forms a salt and water (Can someone help me phrase that better?)

3.A Look at reaction in 1A again. When this process is reversed (Br- + H3O+ --> HBr + H2O) what substance acts as a base? What substance acts as an acid?
My answer; Br- acts as the base and H3O acts as the acid.

3B In practice, the reaction in 1A tends not to run in reverse. What does that tell you about the strength of the acid involved? Explain your answers.

4A What is stronger-- sulfuric acid or carbonic acid? (Hint; which one is responsible for acid rain?)

4B Imagine you have two glasses. One contains a solution of carbonic acid. The other contains a solution of sulfuric acid. Without any other information, can you tell which one is more corrosive? Explain your answer.

4C What makes an acidic solution corrosive?

Sorry for all the questions, but since they all pertain to acids and bases I thought it'd be okay to have them all in one thread rather than make a bunch of threads. Thanks in advance for any and all help.

[Borek]

So far you were right, try next questions.

[StonerPenguin]

Mr. Borek, thank you for checking my answers The only reason why I didn't do all the questions is my laptop has a horrible habit of overheating and shutting down without any warning; I'm glad I sent my thread prematurely and edited it as I worked the answers out because my computer did suddenly shutdown yesterday.

Anyway, back to answers!
3B In practice, the reaction in 1A tends not to run in reverse. What does that tell you about the strength of the acid involved? Explain your answers.
My answer; That this reaction doesn't tend to run in reverse tells me that HBr- is a relatively strong acid.

4A What is stronger-- sulfuric acid or carbonic acid? (Hint; which one is responsible for acid rain?)
My answer; Carbonic acid is a relatively weak acid responsible for acid rain. Sulfuric acid is stronger.

4B Imagine you have two glasses. One contains a solution of carbonic acid. The other contains a solution of sulfuric acid. Without any other information, can you tell which one is more corrosive? Explain your answer.
My answer; No, you can't tell. The corrosive nature of acids and bases in solution is entirely a function of the hydroxide ions and the hydronium ions. There is no difference in kind between the corrosive effect of sulfuric acid and the corrosive effect of carbonic acid. Both produce corrosive hydronium ions; Sulfuric acid just produces more of them.

4C What makes an acidic solution corrosive?
Hydronium ions. How corrosive the solution is depends of the percentage of hydronium ions present in the solution.

Huh, well I guess that wasn't as hard as I thought it was, thank you for the encouragement Mr. Borek! But can you please check these too? I'd appreciate it also, I know I didn't word these very well, so I'm very open to any suggestions. Thanks!

[Borek]

HBr- is a relatively strong acid.

HBr (without a minus) and it is not relatively strong, it is quite strong

Carbonic acid is a relatively weak acid responsible for acid rain. Sulfuric acid is stronger.

Carbonic acid is/was present in the rains always, so rain with pH somewhere between 5 and 6 is not considered acid rain (even if technically its pH is below 7).

The corrosive nature of acids and bases in solution is entirely a function of the hydroxide ions and the hydronium ions. There is no difference in kind between the corrosive effect of sulfuric acid and the corrosive effect of carbonic acid.

First phrase is correct, second not. Carbonic acid is a much weaker one, how does it effect pH of the solution?

[StonerPenguin]

I'm a little confused; what I mean to say is that *in solution* there is no difference. I mean, while sulfuric acid is stronger, if there's a small amount of sulfuric acid in a large amount of water, it should be less corrosive than a solution of water that has a lot of carbonic acid in it.

How would you phrase it? Thanks for working this out with me.

EDIT; By the way I have a few more questions I'm questionable about, should I post them in this thread or start another one?

[Borek]

You should compare solutions that are somehow identical - so the logical thing is to compare solutions of the same concentration of the acid.

[StonerPenguin]

You should compare solutions that are somehow identical - so the logical thing is to compare solutions of the same concentration of the acid.

Yeah, but the question is "Imagine you have two glasses. One contains a solution of carbonic acid. The other contains a solution of sulfuric acid. Without any other information, can you tell which one is more corrosive? Explain your answer." So that's not really an option :/

How about this;
"No, you can't. While the solution of sulfuric acid is probably stronger, you can't truly determine that unless you know the concentration of each solution."

[Schrödinger]

How about this;
"No, you can't. While the solution of sulfuric acid is probably stronger, you can't truly determine that unless you know the concentration of each solution."

Technically correct, but something tells me that the question is referring to solutions of approximately same concentration. Otherwise the question is too broad. You can make any sort of assumptions about the concentrations.

[aberneth]

To achieve the same pH, a solution of carbonic acid would have to be approximately 10³ times more concentrated than the solution of sulfuric acid (assuming only the first deprotonization of the sulfuric acid occurred. Of course, the second deprotonization of sulfuric acid has a fairly high K_a) You can assume that the sulfuric acid is more acidic. Generally, these sorts of problems have the phrase "all things being equal" implied.

[StonerPenguin]

Good food for thought guys I'm done with these problems now; Thanks to all who helped out!