Acids and Bases. How to tell if a compound is an acid or base or neautral?

Raishah

I've been given a question on how to tell whether a compound is an acid or base or neautral in an aquesous solution.

Na2CO3

Please help.

Raishah

This is important! Please help me.

Borek

In this particular case - what do you know about carbonic acid? Is it strong, or weak? What do you know about salts of strong acids? What do you know about salts of weak acids?

Also please read forum rules. You have to show your attempts at solving the question to receive help. This is a forum policy.

Raishah

Well, I'm in grade 12, and I'm struggling. I was wondering, How do I figure out the ph without googling it, I did spend hours trying to find the answer, that didn't involve googling the actual answer, but all that really did was throw words in my head, and confused me til no end. I don't know much about carbonic acid, I guess I'm not asking what the answer is, but more, how do I get to it without searching various factors of the carbonic acid.

Borek

First of all - is it a strong acid, or a weak acid?

JameB

What happens to a compound like Na₂CO₃ in an aqueous solution?

What happens when an acid and a base react?
- If a solution contained a strong acid and a strong base (and vice versa) what would the resulting solution be? Acidic or basic?

Answer those questions and think about it.