If battery acid is made by adding HCL to water, which causes the release of H+ which causes the pH of.....?

Question

... the water to drop to 1, what would the pH of battery acid be if the chloride ions (Cl-) were removed from battery acid?

Answer 1

Your battery acd would be very strange. Battery acid is made with H2SO4, not HCL.

Answer 2

This is an odd question because removing the Cl- requires a replacement by something else and what it is replaced with may or may not impact the pH. The "release" of H+ occurs in the water solvation process. Water has a strong interaction with H+ and Cl- is such a poor base that we don't even call it a base. This causes HCl to completely ionize in water:

HCl(aq) + H2O(l) ---> H3O+(aq) + Cl-(aq)

The H3O+ is the hydronium ion and it's presence will cause the pH change. If the Cl- is replaced by something that is a stronger base, then the pH will increase (i.e. less H3O+ in the solution). If it were replaced by something like Br- or NO3-, then no noticeable impact.

Answer 3

Would it change that much? Because for one thing, pH= -log (H+ concentration) and the concentration doesn't change. Also, HCl is a very strong acid, so it would dissociate very easily.

@ serf_base:
It doesn't look like Cl- is being replaced at all. I think they're assuming the volume of Cl- to be negligible, I'm not sure. But if they are assuming molecular volume, the pH would fall slightly.

Answer 4

Battery acid is sulfuric acid. H2SO4
There are no chloride in a battery.
The pH is 1.
You can not separate the ions.

Answer 5

Most batteries typically use sulfuric acid (H2SO4), not hydrochloric acid. I believe the batteries also contain some type of lead (PbNO4, maybe?), but I've never heard of an HCl-containing battery.

Answer 6

5

Answer 7

Well, the batteries I use contain Sulfuric Acid, or H2SO4. But if you want to use hydrochloric acid in yours, I guess that's your prerogative. Anyway, the pH would still be about the same.