In manufacturing a fruit drink, citric acid is added to water in the amount of 0.1 mol/L. What is the pH of the resulting solution?
Isn't citric acid triprotic, with very small (10^-4 to -6 dissociation constants)?
I am wondering what your teacher is trying to do here, this is NOT a simple calculation, or, your teacher doesn't realize what has been asked.
To calculate the pH of the resulting solution, we need to know the concentration of H+ ions, which is determined by the concentration of citric acid.
The pH is calculated using the formula:
pH = -log[H+]
First, let's determine the concentration of H+ ions using the concentration of citric acid. Citric acid is a weak acid that dissociates into three H+ ions. So, if the concentration of citric acid is 0.1 mol/L, the concentration of H+ ions is 3 * 0.1 mol/L = 0.3 mol/L.
Now, we can calculate the pH:
pH = -log[H+]
= -log[0.3]
≈ -log(3 x 10^-1)
Using logarithmic rules, we can simplify this further:
pH ≈ -log(3) - log(10^-1)
= -0.4771 - (-1)
= -0.4771 + 1
= 0.5229
Therefore, the pH of the resulting solution is approximately 0.5229.