Sunday, January 28, 2007

Acidity

Acidic molecules form stable conjugate bases. Molecules that are stabilized by inductance are not as stable as those that are stabilized by resonance. The reason that acetic acid is more acidic than ethanol is that the anion formed when the proton dissociates off of the carboxyl group can delocalize onto the carbonyl oxygen. The reason that trifluoroacetic acid is stronger than acetic acid is because it has three additional electron withdrawing groups to delocalize the anion formed when the proton breaks off.

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