Background Chemistry, Part 2
Bases
What is a base? What makes a base different from an acid? What different
properties do bases have that acids do not have?
Similarly, bases can be described by a variety of physical characteristics
such as taste, touch and its reaction with metals.
Bases have a bitter taste to them. Dark chocolate has a bitter taste
because companies use dilute amounts of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to make
it taste more bitter.
The feel of bases on your skin is also very distinct. Bases tend to
feel slippery and soapy, like that of detergents and cleaner solutions.
In fact, you can clean the oils off of your skin when you take a shower
because the base is working hard to react and dissolve the oils on your
skin. Powerful cleaners, such as Liquid Plumber also use strong
bases in their ingredients. In this case, NaOH in cleaners is much more
concentrated than the NaOH found in your chocolate.
Bronsted-Lowery Definition
According to the Bronsted-Lowery definition, a base can accept H+ ions,
or protons. The strength of a base is similar to the stength of an acid,
but the strength of a base depends on how easily it will accept
a proton.
Proceed
to Learn about pHs
