What is the effect of dilution on the pH of a strong acid solution?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What is the effect of dilution on the pH of a strong acid solution?
pH increases
pH decreases
pH remains constant
pH becomes neutral
Diluting a strong acid decreases its concentration, which increases the pH (making it less acidic).
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: What is the effect of dilution on the pH of a strong acid solution?
Solution: Diluting a strong acid decreases its concentration, which increases the pH (making it less acidic).
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand what a strong acid is. A strong acid completely dissociates in water, meaning it releases all of its hydrogen ions (H+).
Step 2: Know that pH is a measure of how acidic or basic a solution is. A lower pH means a more acidic solution, while a higher pH means a less acidic (or more basic) solution.
Step 3: When you dilute a strong acid, you add more water to it. This means you are spreading out the acid molecules in a larger volume.
Step 4: As you dilute the acid, the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) decreases because there are now more water molecules compared to acid molecules.
Step 5: Since pH is related to the concentration of hydrogen ions, a decrease in hydrogen ion concentration leads to an increase in pH.
Step 6: Therefore, diluting a strong acid makes the solution less acidic, which means the pH increases.