Bases
2 guided lessons · 18 checks · 2. Inorganic Chemistry → Acids, Bases & Salt Preparations
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What makes a base act like a base?
A base is any substance that can cancel out an acid, and the products of that reaction are a salt and water. Some bases dissolve in water, and these soluble bases have their own name: alkalis. Because the two words are related but not identical, all alkalis are bases while many bases, such as copper(II) oxide, never dissolve at all.
What you know already
From Reactions of Acids you already know that acids react with metal oxides and hydroxides to give a salt and water. This note names the substances doing the neutralising, separates soluble bases from insoluble ones, and introduces the ion that every alkaline solution shares.
Key points of understanding
- A base neutralises an acid, forming a salt and water.
- An alkali is a base that dissolves in water, so every alkali is a base but not every base is an alkali.
- Alkalis have pH values above 7.
- In basic conditions red litmus paper turns blue.
- Most bases are oxides, hydroxides or carbonates of metals.
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1.What makes a base act like a base?
A base is any substance that can cancel out an acid, and the products of that reaction are a salt and water. Some bases dissolve in water, and these soluble bases have their own name: alkalis. Because the two words are related but not identical, all alkalis are bases while many bases, such as copper(II) oxide, never dissolve at all.
Key points
- A base neutralises an acid, forming a salt and water.
- An alkali is a base that dissolves in water, so every alkali is a base but not every base is an alkali.
- Alkalis have pH values above 7.
- In basic conditions red litmus paper turns blue.
- Most bases are oxides, hydroxides or carbonates of metals.
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Guided content from the SME authoring corpus — note rn_VvsXMdW3TB37JhWF, pinned at a8889009338b · promoted SyllabAI/syllabai-resources e967e75f1339