Acid-Base Diagrams

Abstract

The understanding of acid–base equilibria is of basic importance for chemistry, and thus also for biochemistry, biology, environmental sciences, etc. Hardly any chem- ical technique, any biochemical process, any environmental phenomenon can be understood without a profound knowledge of the underlying acid–base equilibria on a quantitative basis. However, even for the simplest chemical systems the mathematical calculations can be rather complicated, and the desire will arise to describe the systems by well-chosen approximations. For all these requirements there is one powerful means, the so-called acid–base diagrams (pH-logc i diagrams), which permit a simple presentation of the dependencies of the concentrations of all participating species as a function of pH of the aqueous solutions. With their help, it is easy to find the possible simplified equation which permits a straightforward calculation of special cases. These diagrams also permit the construction of titration diagrams.