Question

How can you determine the strength of sulphuric acid?

Answer 1

Strength of an acid is the measure of the liberation of protons, in an aqueous solution, and it is affected by certain factors.
Sulphuric acid is a strong acid and tends to dissociate completely in an aqueous solution, and so it would have higher acidic strength than the weak acids.

Complete step-by-step answer: In order to answer this question, we need to discuss what acidic strength is, and the factors which affect it. We know that the acids are the species which have a tendency to liberate its proton in aqueous solution and the bases are the ones which have the tendency to accept protons or donate hydroxide ions.
The acidic strength is the measure of those protons which are liberated by the acid, meaning, the more protons the acid liberates, more would be the acidic strength. In case of strong acids, ideally complete dissociation takes place which results in higher acidic strength of strong acids than the weak ones. For instance, hydrochloric acid, which has the formula $HCl$ in its concentrated form would have higher acidic strength than the acetic acid with formula $C{{H}_{3}}COOH$ as it is a weak acid. This is because the weak acids tend to dissociate partially, from the main compound.
Now we will consider the factors which affect the acidic strength of a solution.
Generally, if the strength of the bond between proton and the anion in an acid or the $H-A$ bond, the $H$ is the proton attached to $A$ which is the anionic part of the acid, is weak, then the strength of acid becomes strong. In other words, if the $H-A$ bond is weak, it will be easier to remove the proton from the molecule, hence higher acidic strength. Another factor which affects the acidic strength is bond polarity of the $H-A$ bond, which is directly related to the size of the anionic part. Smaller the size of the anion, stronger will be the bond strength, weaker will be the acidic strength.
So, acidic strength of sulphuric acid can be calculated by using the value of concentration of a base and the volume of the base with which the acid will be titrated. After that, the number of moles of the base would help us determine the strength of the acid.

Note: The strength of an acid depends on the factors like the bond polarity and the bond strength of the acid, and is inversely proportional to each other. Meaning, with increase in bond strength, the acidic strength would decrease.
The strength of an acid can be determined experimentally, by the use of titration, with the strong acid.