Definitions

So those first two were a little simple, I'll admit, but they are a good introduction. Our friend, Hank, provides some more detail in his crash course:

The crash course on acid-base reactions also touches on how we see these types of reactions affecting nature, mentioning acid rain and its affect on limestone as well as other substances.

Here are also a few websites that go into a little more detail:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/acids-and-bases-topic

https://www2.nau.edu/lrm22/lessons/acids_and_bases/acids_and_bases.html

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-chemistry/chapter/acids-and-bases/

pH (and pOH) are mentioned in relation to measuring/quantifying acidity so here is a crash course on them, in addition to the material already provided. pOH isn't typically used as commonly as pH, however.

So, to summarize:

• there are three main definitions of acids and bases (Bronsted-Lowry, Arrhenius, Lewis definitions).

• in general, if add base to an acid, salt and water are produced.

• strong acids/bases completely dissociate while weak acids/bases do not completely dissociate.

• conjugate acids/bases are species formed after accepts/donates a proton

• pH is a measure of the strength of acidic/basic character for a given substance. Mathematically, pH= -log [H+] and has a scale of 0 to 14. Neutral pH is defined as 7, but is commonly given a range between 6 and 8.

• pOH is a measure of hydroxide (OH-) concentration and equals -log [OH]

• water can act as either an acid or base due to auto-ionization ("amphoteric"). Pure water is considered pH-neutral (pH=7).

• Dissociation of water, with the constatnt, Kw, is equivalent to [OH-]*[H+], which equals 10^(-14).

• pKw= pH + pOH = 14 (at 25 degrees Celsius)

A note: Chemists typically write H3O+ (hydronium ion) as H+, but these are not truly "free" protons