As a chemist for an agricultural products company, you have just developed a new

Question

As a chemist for an agricultural products company, you have just developed a new herbicide,"Herbigon," that you think has the potential to kill weeds effectively. A sparingly soluble salt, Herbigon is dissolved in 1 M acetic acid for technical reasons having to do with its production. You have determined that the solubility product Ksp of Herbigon is 9.20×106.

Although the formula of this new chemical is a trade secret, it can be revealed that the formula for Herbigon is X-acetate (XCH3COO, where "X" represents the top-secret cation of the salt). It is this cation that kills weeds. Since it is critical to have Herbigon dissolved (it won't kill weeds as a suspension), you are working on adjusting the pH so Herbigon will be soluble at the concentration needed to kill weeds. What pH must the solution have to yield a solution in which the concentration of X+ is 4.50×103M ? The pKa of acetic acid is 4.76.

Explanation / Answer

Ksp= [X+]. [CH3COO-]

9.2 ×10-6 = 4.5 × 10-3 × [CH3COO-]

[CH3COO-] = 2.04 × 10-3 M

pH = pka+ log (2.04 × 10-3)/1

pH = 4.76 + (-3 +.309) = 2.069

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