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Question: Why does \(HCl\) and \(HN{{O}_{3}}\) show acidic behaviour in aqueous solutions while solutions of a...

Why does HClHCl and HNO3HN{{O}_{3}} show acidic behaviour in aqueous solutions while solutions of alcohol and glucose do not show acidic behaviour even though they contain hydrogen in them?

Explanation

Solution

Acids are generally those substances which are capable of donating a proton i.e. hydrogen atom to another substance while bases are those substances which are able to accept a hydrogen ion from an acid.

Complete answer:
Acids are generally those substances which are capable of donating a proton i.e. hydrogen atom to another substance while bases are those substances which are able to accept a hydrogen ion from an acid.
HClHCl and HNO3HN{{O}_{3}} is termed as an acid by itself as contain hydrogen ions represented by H+{{H}^{+}} and due to the presence of these hydrogen ions it gets ionized when dissolved in aqueous solution. On the other hand alcohol and glucose have hydrogen ions but they do not form any H+{{H}^{+}} ions in aqueous solution, therefore they will not contain any acidic character.
Hence from the above discussion we can say that HClHCl and HNO3HN{{O}_{3}} show acidic behaviour in aqueous solutions while solutions of alcohol and glucose do not show acidic behaviour even though they contain hydrogen in them.

Note:
Acids are generally sour in taste like lemon in which citric acid is present and it turns blue litmus paper to red. Bases are bitter in taste and turn red litmus paper into red. A base that can be dissolved in water is known by the term alkali and when these substances chemically react with acids they form salts.