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Ah, Brønsted-Lewis. In defence of the OP: People informed on Chemistry usually take "acid = you'll get H₃O⁺ in water" and "base = you'll get OH⁻ in water"; tha
by chaosjevil 3y ago
Ah, Brønsted-Lewis. In defence of the OP:
People informed on Chemistry usually take "acid = you'll get H₃O⁺ in water" and "base = you'll get OH⁻ in water"; that is, the Arrhenius' definition, updated for modern times. Brønsted-Lewis actually makes you think about what's going on (the transference of H⁺), in order to generalise it to other situations.
For example, consider the following reaction:
H₂O + HF ←→ OH⁻ + H₂F⁺
You don't get H₃O⁺ so by Arrhenius' [updated] definition there wouldn't be an acid there. But there is one - H₂O.
And someone might say "but wait, Arrhenius talks about H⁺!" - well, go look for "bare" protons in nuclear fusion, not in chemical reactions.