What is the importance of self dissociation of acids and bases ? the dissociation of water is 14 what is it .?

Question

What is the importance of self dissociation of acids and bases ? the dissociation of water is 14 what is it .?

Answer 1

The self dissociation of acids and bases is important for what are called "weak" acids and bases.

For these chemicals, when in solution they do not completely split into positive and negative ions - a certain portion of the molecules stays put together.

Because of this, not all of the hydrogen ions, or hydroxyl ions in the compound will be released into the water.

If you recall, the concentration of hydrogen ions in water is called pH and is a measure of the acidity of a solution.

Different weak acids and bases, dissociate to different degrees, so that their solutions will have different pH's.

pH is an important factor which determines what chemical reactions will take place in a solution.  this is quite important in the human body (blood etc.)

The dissociation constant of water is 1 x 10^-14

This means that a certain portion of water molecules splits into ions - hydrogen ions and hydroxyl ions.

The dissociation constant is simply the product of the concentration of hydrogen ions and the concentration of hydroxyl ions:

[H+]x[OH-] = 1x10^-14

It has been found that this remains constant, even with other chemicals present.

Hope this helps