Q.What are the limitations of Arrhenius concept ?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →The Arrhenius concept is limited because it is valid only in water and cannot explain acids/bases that do not release or ions.
The Arrhenius concept (1887) defines an acid as a substance that ionises in water to give (more correctly ) ions, and a base as a substance that ionises in water to give ions; neutralisation is simply . While useful, this concept has several important limitations:
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Restricted to aqueous solution only. The concept defines acids and bases only in terms of their behaviour in water, so it cannot describe or compare acid-base behaviour in non-aqueous solvents (such as liquid ammonia, glacial acetic acid, or benzene) or in the gas phase.
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Cannot explain basicity of substances without . Compounds such as , amines, and behave as bases (they can accept a proton or neutralise acids) even though they do not contain an ion in their formula; the Arrhenius concept has no way to classify them as bases.
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Cannot explain acidity of substances without ionisable . Species such as , , and behave as acids (they accept electron pairs / react with bases) although they possess no ionisable hydrogen at all; Arrhenius's definition cannot account for this.
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