Strong Acid Versus Weak Acid

The primal difference between weak and strong acid is that weak acids ionize partially in h2o whereas potent acids ionize completely.

The forcefulness of an acid is its power to ionize or donate the hydrogen ion in an aqueous solution reacting with water. The more than an acid ionizes, the stronger it is, and the less production of hydrogen ions indicates a weak acid. This is the deviation between a strong and a weak acid. The concentration of ions in an aqueous solution of an acrid tells how strong or weak an acrid it is. So, you can have a concentrated solution of a weak acid, and it is perfectly possible to take a dilute solution of a potent acid.

1. Overview and Key Departure
2. What is Weak Acid
three. What is Strong Acid
4. Side by Side Comparing – Weak vs Potent Acid in Tabular Form
5. Summary

What is Weak Acid?

Weak acid refers to the chemical compounds that partially dissociates into ions in an aqueous solution. They exercise not release the total amount of releasable hydrogen ions (H⁺) into the solution. For these acids, the acid dissociation abiding or Thousand_a is a minor value. The pH of these solutions lies around three to 5. Mainly, this is considering these weak acids cannot raise the hydrogen ion content in the solution as much as a strong acrid does.

Figure 01: Weak Acid speciation Diagram (for the weak acid HA)

Since the weak acid dissociates partially, the aqueous solution contains three major components; hydrogen ions, unionized acid molecules and the conjugated base of operations (anion jump to the hydrogen ion in the acrid molecule). Some common examples include sulfurous acid, phosphoric acrid, nitrous acid, etc.

What is Strong Acid?

Strong acrid refers to the molecules that completely dissociates into ions in an aqueous solution. Therefore, these compounds completely ionize in water. The value of acrid dissociation constant or Ka is a high value for this type of acids. Stronger the acid, easier the release of hydrogen ions. Mainly, this happens due to the loftier polarity of the H-A bail in which H is a hydrogen atom, and A is the conjugate base. In order to be highly polar, the electronegativity difference between the atoms in each side of this bond should be high.

Figure 02: Chemical Structure of the Strong Acid HNO3 (Nitric Acid)

Moreover, this hydrogen ion release also depends on the size of the anion (conjugated base) to which the hydrogen ion is attached. If the anion is big and more stable, and so it can hands release the hydrogen ion. Unlike weak acids, these strong acids release all possible hydrogen ions to the aqueous solution. The pH value of these aqueous solutions is very small; can range from 1 to 3.

What is the Difference Between Weak and Strong Acid?

Weak acids ionize partially in water whereas strong acids ionize completely. Therefore, ionization is the key difference between weak and strong acid. Moreover, one other difference between weak and potent acid is that weak acrid does not remove all the releasable hydrogen atoms. On the contrary, stiff acid releases all possible hydrogen atoms.

Likewise, there exists a difference betwixt weak and stiff acid based on their pH value also. That is; the pH value of weak acids ranges from iii to v while that of strong acids ranges from 1 to 3. Also, acid dissociation constant contributes to another difference between weak and potent acid. Acid dissociation abiding of weak acid is minor compared to strong acid.

Summary – Weak vs Potent Acid

Acids are molecules that can release hydrogen ions to an aqueous solution. Nosotros can classify all the acids every bit stiff acids, moderately strong acids and weak acids. In brief, the key difference between weak and strong acid is that weak acids ionize partially in h2o whereas strong acids ionize completely.

Reference:

1. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "List of Strong and Weak Acids." ThoughtCo, Sep. 24, 2018. Bachelor here
2. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. "Weak Acid Definition and Examples in Chemistry." ThoughtCo, Jun. 18, 2018. Available hither

Image Courtesy:

1."Weak acid speciation"Past P. Gans and transferred past LeaW., (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia
ii."CNX Chem 18 09 HNO3″By OpenStax (CC By four.0) via Eatables Wikimedia