Question #b85c7

1 Answer
anor277
May 1, 2017

In water, the hydronium ion is CLEARLY the acid..........

Explanation:

Water is well known to undergo the following reaction, so-called "auto-protolysis", or "self-ionization":

2H_2OrightleftharpoonsH_3O^+ + HO^-

These ionic species are conceptions; we could equally write..........

H_2Orightleftharpoons H^+ +HO^-

So what is the "acidium ion"? As far as anyone knows it is a cluster of 3-4 water molecules with an EXTRA proton tacked on to give H_7O_3^+ or H_9O_4^+. We write H^+ or H_3O^+ as a convenient shorthand.

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