The Most Worthless Thread on Canreef

[justinl]

time for a lil science boys and girls!

what is pH (i hope you know this already)? It is the "partial Hydrogen" in a solution. That means that protons aka Hydrogen ions (H+) occupying a volume of liquid. So where does H+ come from? well there are two kinds of chemicals called acids (pH less than 7) and bases (pH greater than 7). pH is different from a "concentration" (like ppm) in that it's a logarithmic function... it's backwards! so a pH of 1 is satrated with H+ and a pH of 14 (max pH) is very very low in H+. every increment of 1 is an increase tenfold in H+.

Take muriatic acid for example: HCl. when in an aqueous solution (contains water) the HCl partially breaks apart into its ions H+ and Cl-. and pH is the measure of how much H+ is in that solution. Water itself also contributes to pH, hence the neutral pH of 7.

Bases are the H+ deficient form of their acidic cousins. basically they steal H+ from the solution and therefore raise te pH.

fun times! now where was i? oh yeah, if a solution's pH is below 7 it's considered acidic. if it's at 7 its called neutral. if it's above 7 then it's called basic aka alkaline. so to answer your question, there's no such thing as an "alkaline acid". that my friend is an oxymoron!

so about caustic soda. well from a chemistry point of view that makes no sense! if anything caustic soda should drop the pH of mud (which is usually around 7 give or take a bit)

that was a fun rant.