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I don't get neutralization reactions. When we are talking about complete neutralization, lets say you have a weak base and a strong acid. Are we stating that a neutralization reaction would occur if you have equimolar amounts of weak base and strong acid because each H+ ion provided by the acid would be neutralized by each OH- provided by the base or does neutralization mean the theoretical amount of acid + base needed to turn each H+ and OH- into water?
Let's say we had NaOH + HF -> NaF + H2O.
NaF is a basic salt, meaning that some of the F- would technically strip some H+ ions from aqueous solution yielding HF, causing the solution to be basic which would mean there technically wouldn't be a neutralization reaction, since now we would have HF (as well as some OH-, the cause of the basic nature of the salt). So what exactly is a neutralization reaction. Is it just the theoretical amount of acid you have to add to the base to hypothetically neutralize the -OH from the base and the H+ from the acid? 😕
Let's say we had NaOH + HF -> NaF + H2O.
NaF is a basic salt, meaning that some of the F- would technically strip some H+ ions from aqueous solution yielding HF, causing the solution to be basic which would mean there technically wouldn't be a neutralization reaction, since now we would have HF (as well as some OH-, the cause of the basic nature of the salt). So what exactly is a neutralization reaction. Is it just the theoretical amount of acid you have to add to the base to hypothetically neutralize the -OH from the base and the H+ from the acid? 😕