• Question: Wht is ph measurd up to 14?

    Asked by jreedwill to Jarv, Indi on 12 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Jarvist Moore Frost

      Jarvist Moore Frost answered on 9 Mar 2012:

      I don’t like the pH scale! I think it’s really confusing, exactly the kind of thing a chemist would enjoy making up. OK, it’s pretty useful if you actually want to measure something, and it’s nice that you have more detail around neutral water, but if you want to do calculations I think using molar concentrations ([H+]) is better.

      pH is often considered to go from 0 to 14, and in practice with aqueous (water) solutions this is more or less true, but certainly you could imagine ‘super’ acids and alkalis that exceed these limits. I think they’ve actually made ‘negative pH’ acids.

    • Photo: Indi Ghangrekar

      Indi Ghangrekar answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I don’t know why the pH scale only goes up to 14. I do remember doing lots of questions to do with pH and titrations and kinetics in chemistry. It was interesting but I’d end up getting a little lost when the kinetics got too in depth – I wish I was better at maths!

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