The determination of acidity of the dilute solutions of weak multibasic organic acids

Abstract

The new theoretical method for the accurate determination of acidity of dilute solutions of weak multibasic organic acids (which are widely used in medicine, pharmacology, various branches of industry and participate in important biological processes in living organisms) is suggested. The concepts of the contributions of the separate dissociation steps to the [H+] value, xm, are used for an analysis of complex equilibria of the processes of dissociation of these acids. The cases of weak dibasic and tribasic organic acids with the “overlapping” dissociation equilibria and a general case of weak multibasic acids, HnA, are considered. From the conditions of equality of the concentrations of various ionized and non-ionized forms in the dilute solutions of weak multibasic organic acids the areas of dominance of these forms in connection with the corresponding xm values are formulated.