Prev. Article Next Article Table of Contents

Article

The Correlation of Binary Acid Strengths with Molecular Properties in First-Year Chemistry

Citing Articles

Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text.

Purchase the full-text

PDF/HTML,
figures/images,
references and tables,
(where available)

Travis D. Fridgen

Department of Chemistry, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John''s, Newfoundland, Canada

J. Chem. Educ., 2008, 85 (9), p 1220

DOI: 10.1021/ed085p1220

Publication Date (Web): September 1, 2008

Section:

History, Education, and Documentation

Abstract

This article deals with the rather complicated if not incorrect way that the strengths of binary acids are rationalized to students in many classrooms owing to the way it is presented in first-year chemistry textbooks. The common explanations, which use the homolytic bond dissociation energy as a rationalization of the trend in acid strengths when going down a group in the periodic table and the difference in electronegativity when going across a period, are contradictory and are replaced by one explanation for all binary acids. The present explanation uses a Born–Haber cycle involving homolyic bond dissociation energies, electron affinities, and ion solvation enthalpies to rationalize the trends observed in the acid strength of all binary acids whether going across a period or down a group in the periodic table, all which are concepts typically presented to students prior to the acidity concept.

Keywords (Audience):

First-Year Undergraduate / General

Keywords (Domain):

Physical Chemistry

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Misconceptions / Discrepant Events

Keywords (Subject):

Acids / Bases

View: Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links

Citing Articles

Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef's Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search in SciFinder.

This article has been cited by 1 ACS Journal articles (1 most recent appear below).

Ion Pairs or Neutral Molecule Adducts? Cooperativity in Hydrogen Bonding
Roger L. DeKock , Laura A. Schipper , Stephanie C. Dykhouse , Lee P. Heeringa and Benjamin M. Brandsen
Journal of Chemical Education2009 86 (12), 1459
- Ion Pairs or Neutral Molecule Adducts? Cooperativity in Hydrogen Bonding
  Roger L. DeKock , Laura A. Schipper , Stephanie C. Dykhouse , Lee P. Heeringa and Benjamin M. Brandsen
  Journal of Chemical Education2009 86 (12), 1459
  We performed theoretical studies on the systems NH3·HF·mH2O, NH3·HCl·mH2O, with m = 0, 1, 2, and 6. The molecules with m = 0 form hydrogen-bonded adducts with little tendency to form an ion-pair structure. The molecule NH3·HCl·H2O cannot be characterized ...
  Abstract | Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links