How To Find PH

The PH scale is used to measure how acidic or basic a substance is. They are two extremes that range in PH scale. Ranging from 0 to 14, 7 indicate that the PH is neutral. PH that is less than 7 is acidic and greater than 7 is basic.

Being logarithmic, the pH value below 7 is ten times more acidic than the next higher value. For instance, PH 4 is ten times more acidic than PH 5 and 100 times more acidic than PH 6. The case is similar for PH values that are above 7, every one being ten times more alkaline than the next lower whole value. For instance, PH 10 is ten times more alkaline than PH 9 and 100 times more alkaline than pH 8. In general, pH of a substance that is less than 7 it is acidic, greater than 7is basic and very near 7 is neutral.

Here are some of the most important factors that you should be aware to find the PH. Measured in logarithmic scale, PH is used to determine the concentration of a solution on the basis on hydrogen ions. PH is defined as log[H+] that means pH equals the negative log of the concentration of an acid (H+). For instance: assuming that if there is a solution of 0.02M hydrochloric acid, the PH of which you need to find out then the formula to find the PH is: pH = -log[H+] = -log[0.02] = 1.7. This means that the solution is very acidic as the PH value is near to zero.

The pH scale usually seems to be similar to this: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14, wherein 0 - 6 is acidic, 7 is neutral and 8 - 14 is basic or alkaline. If you have the PH and not the concentration then, you can calculate it as follows. Assuming that the pH of the solution is 2.3 then, 2.3 = -log[H+] and [H+] = 10^-pH = 10^-2.3 = [5.0 x 10^-3M]. You should also know about the significant digits and log values in PH. The value of 2.0 x 10-7 demonstrates both accuracy (two significant digits in 2.0) and size or magnitude (shown in the exponent -7).