Wednesday, 7 March 2007

SAT Question of the Day

Which is the correct order of decreasing acidity for the aqueous solution of the following acids:

(A)HI > HBr > HCl >HF
(B)HF > HCl > HBr >HI
(C)HF > HI > HBr >HCl
(D)HCl> HBr > HI>HF
(E)HI =HCl =HBr =HF

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

isnt it B ?

Anonymous said...

I think it's B

Anonymous said...

It seems like B

Anonymous said...

A or D. leaning on A

Blog owner said...

The right answer is "A".
The acidity of the acids is different in aqueous solution from that in the gas phase. In the gas phase the correct order would be "B" -because of the atom's electronegativity (F>Cl>Br..).In water, however, the electrostatic and Columbian attractions play a greater role, therefore Iodine because of its greater volume would tend to stay dissociated, while Fluorine because of its small volume and negative charge would tend to attract a proton from water to form HF.
The literature values for the pKa of the aqueous solution of the acids: pKa HI = -10, pKa HBr = -9, pKa HCl=-7, pKa HF= 3.2
This values also support the above mentioned theory.

Anonymous said...

wats pKa?

Chemist said...

The F is the ellement with the biggest electronegativity so the atraction between H and F is very high, but the I has the lowest electronegativity, it can donate the H. The Broensted Theory of acid and base says that an ACID: Is a substance which can donate proton

Anonymous said...

is get that but wats pKa?

Blog owner said...

pKa is the negative logarithm of the acidity constant
pKa = -lgKa
Ka is the acidity constant, and for an acid is defined as:
HA+ H2O <=> A- + H3O+

Ka = [A-][H3O+]/[HA]

Mr. Acorn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

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- Murk