What is the color of litmus?

Question

What is the color of litmus? The liquid that gives different colors in acidic and alkaline solutions?

Answer 1

The liquid should be clear...litmus paper is white usually...turns pink to red when in an unbalanced PH soulution....Yukoneze

Answer 2

Litmus, organic dye usually used in the laboratory as an indicator of acidity or alkalinity. Naturally pink in color, it turns blue in alkali solutions and red in acids. Commonly, paper is treated with the coloring matter to form so-called litmus paper. Litmus is extracted, chiefly in the Netherlands, from certain lichens, which are mashed, treated with potassium carbonate and ammonia, and allowed to ferment. The resulting product is mixed with various colorless substances, such as chalk or gypsum, and is sold in dark blue lumps, masses, or tablets. The active component of litmus, i.e., the part sensitive to acids or bases, is called erythrolitmin.

Litmus is a weakly acidic, colored organic dye. As its environment changes from acid (pH < 7) to base (pH > 7), the molecule changes from the protonated acid to the ionized salt. Its color also changes from red to blue. (The actual pH range for this color change is from about 4.5 to 8.3.) Because of this, litmus paper is widely used to distinguish between acids and bases.
So widespread is the use of litmus in testing whether a solution or gas is acidic or basic, that the concept of a "litmus test" has spread to include any simple but definitive test. Politicians are always calling political issues a "litmus test".

However, chemically the litmus test is a test for the acidity of a substance and is defined by the following rules:

red litmus turns blue in base
blue litmus turns red in acid

The key word is turns. If red litmus is put in a solution and remains red it does not mean the solution is acidic. It may be acidic but it also could be neutral. However, it definitely is not basic.

Litmus changed from red to blue by a gas, can be reused as blue litmus paper and vice versa.

Answer 3

Litmus is a paper.

It have two colours, blue and red.

blue turns red in acidic solution, and red turns blue in alkaline solution