Chapter 16, Problem 1E

In the opening section of this chapter text, we see that in the Batman comic book series. Batman treats a strong acid bum with a strong base. What is problematic about this treatment?

Interpretation Introduction

To determine:

The problem to burn strong acid with strong base

Answer to Problem 1E

Solution:

The burning of strong acid with string base causes serious harm to the human body, mass and tissues.

Explanation of Solution

The strong acids always try to deprotonate and it usually burn the skin or tissue of a human body on contact. Similarly the strong bases always attract the acid to get neutralise. On contact of these two, the reaction results in formation of a salt and water as shown below with loss of lot of heat energy in terms of enthalpy ( $\text{ΔH}$ ).

Example:

i) The reaction between strong acid like $\text{HCl}$ and strong base like $\text{NaOH}$ forms $\text{NaCl}$ and water on reaction with enthalpy ( $\text{ΔH}$ ) -58 kJ/mol

  $\text{HCl + NaOH }\to {\text{ NaCl + H}}_{\text{2}}\text{O}$

ii) The reaction between strong acid like ${\text{H}}_{\text{2}}{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}$ and strong base like $\text{KOH}$ forms ${\text{K}}_2{\text{SO}}_4$ and water on reaction with enthalpy ( $\text{ΔH}$ ) -55.9 kJ/mol

  ${\text{H}}_{\text{2}}{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}\text{ + KOH }\to {\text{ K}}_{\text{2}}{\text{SO}}_{\text{4}}{\text{ + H}}_{\text{2}}\text{O}$

Conclusion

Thus the reaction of strong acid with strong base forms a lot of heat and if the reaction occurs at high temperature then a burning sensation will be experienced.