What do acids and bases taste like

It stings. Acids sting cuts. If you've ever spilled bleach or soap on the floor, you may have noticed that it is slippery. Bases such as bleach and soap are slippery. Our neutral substance, water, would be a good choice for cleaning up acids and bases because it doesn't sting and it's not slippery. Please don't ever touch strong acids or strong bases because they can be harmful to your skin and may damage sensitive tissues such as your eyes. Examples of acids, bases and neutrals What are some common acids, bases and neutrals?

Have you ever had acid indigestion? Figure 1. Phenolphthalein indicator in presence of base. Summary Properties of acids are described. The properties of bases are listed. Practice Acids Watch the video at the link below and answer the following questions: Which of the four solutions are acids? Stop the video at minutes and predict conductivities. What color did the acids turn when universal indicator was added?

Bases Read this page about Chemical Properties of Bases and answer the following questions: What does the reaction between an acid and a base produce?

What is this reaction called? What does the reaction of a base with an ammonium salt form? Review Acids Are all acids electrolytes in water? Acids come in many different strengths and are essential to our daily lives.

Bases are also extremely important in our lives. A base is a compound capable of donating negatively charged hydroxide ions.

If you add a base to water, it breaks apart and makes the solution more basic by adding hydroxide ions. When acids and bases are combined an acid-base reaction occurs.

If there are an equal number of hydrogen and hydroxide ions present, the acid and base will neutralize each other, forming a salt and water. In this activity you will explore the reaction that takes place when you combine an acid with a basic carbonate.

The product of this reaction is a fun and tasty surprise! Observations and results In this activity your mouth was a mini-chemistry lab! When the acid citric acid and carbonate base baking soda mixed with your saliva, a chemical reaction took place that created carbon dioxide gas—which you felt as tiny bubbles in your mouth. When you add them to your mouth, the saliva helps the acid and base dissolve, increasing the chances that a bicarbonate ion will come in contact with an acidic proton. The reaction, therefore, takes place much more quickly, and you can feel the gas bubbles produced!

An acid-base reaction like this one requires two main ingredients—can you guess what they are? An acid and a base! Strong acids and bases will be strong electrolytes. Weak acids and bases will be weak electrolytes. This affects the amount of conductivity. In , the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius proposed two specific classifications of compounds, termed acids and bases.

When dissolved in an aqueous solution, certain ions were released into the solution. The Arrhenius definition of acid-base reactions is a development of the "hydrogen theory of acids". It was used to provide a modern definition of acids and bases, and followed from Arrhenius's work with Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald in establishing the presence of ions in aqueous solution in