Question

When sulfuric acid and potassium hydroxide neutralize each other to make water and potassium sulphate. How is water formed?

Answer 1

A chemical reaction in which an acid quantitatively reacts with base to form salt and water is known as a neutralization reaction. The pH of the salt formed completely varies as per the strength of acid and base considered in the reaction.

Complete answer:
We know that an acid can be defined as any compound which increases the amount of hydrogen ion $({H^ + })$ in an aqueous solution while the base is ant compound which increases the amount of hydroxide ion $(O{H^ - })$ in the aqueous solution.
Now, in the given neutralization reaction, the sulfuric acid dissociates to form hydrogen ion and sulphate ion and the base i.e., potassium hydroxide dissociates in aqueous solution to form potassium ions and hydroxide ions. Thus, the oppositely charged ions from both compounds react together to form the final products that means the hydrogen ions combine with hydroxide ions to form water while the potassium ions combine with sulphate ions to form potassium sulphate. The balanced chemical reaction for the given neutralization reaction can be expressed as follows:
${H_2}S{O_4} + 2KOH \to {K_2}S{O_4} + 2{H_2}O$
Thus, we can conclude that in the neutralization reaction, water is formed when hydrogen ions from acid combine with hydroxide ions from base.

Note:
It is important to note that in a neutralization reaction, the ions other than hydrogen ion and hydroxide ion are just spectators and not involved in the chemical reaction which illustrates that the neutralization reactions are also known as water forming reactions. Most of these reactions are highly exothermic i.e., an appreciable amount of heat is evolved when an acid reacts with a base.