Home > Community > If sodium bicarbonate was mixed into some distilled water, and somehow all the bicarbonate was removed from solution, would it be possible to have just sodium in the water? What would the PH be?
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Alan Murrie

If sodium bicarbonate was mixed into some distilled water, and somehow all the bicarbonate was removed from solution, would it be possible to have just sodium in the water? What would the PH be?

Ashish Panday  Follow

When sodium bicarbonate is mixed with salt water, you get this

NaHCO3+ NaCl + H2O ⟶2Na+, Cl-, HCO3-, 2H+, O--

There is no reaction, just dissociation.

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Billie Lusk  Follow

Sodium bicarbonate can’t make water hard because hardness is defined by calcium and magnesium in the water, not sodium.

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Darren Farley  Follow

Simplest way is to add hydrochloric acid with control of pH to near 7, until all of the evolved carbon dioxide is removed. You will then have more NaCl in solution than before. If this is a problem then throw some of it away.

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Brian Bi  Follow

Sodium Bicarbonate dissolves readily in water making a mildly alkaline solution.

Not touching the chemist hat as that is already covered….. some practical uses:

You are talking “baking soda”. That is what makes biscuits (U.S. definition), cookies, brownies, and other quick breads and confections puff up.

“Baking Powder” is sodium bicarbonate mixed with tartaric acid (found as a white residue in wine barrels originally). Again, stuff to make your cakes rise. (Yes, there are double acting baking powders with more ingredients but a basic baking powder is baking soda and tartaric acid.)

Mix baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) with vinegar (ascetic acid) and it foam up releasing carbon dioxide. Do this in a sealed container with a hose running to a second container holding water… you are making carbonated water 19th century style. Good middle school science fair thing there.. making your own soda with a couple of two liter bottles and some fittings from the hardware store.

Sodium Bicarbonate has been around for a long time and used for other things besides cooking.

Indigestion remedy… teaspoon in a cup of water to relieve acid indigestion

Tooth brushing…. Yep, wet the toothbrush and sprinkle on some baking soda for brushing your teeth. “Toothpaste” is a very very new thing when it comes to dental care. Read the fine print on the toothpaste and you often find pumice (abrasive), sodium bicarbonate (pH lowering agent), alginase (gooey seaweed extract) and some flavor and color.

Use it on grease fires…. it releases carbon dioxide when heated. You can put out a fire in a skillet without breaking out that ANSUL fire extinguisher under the sink and getting caustic powder all over the kitchen that will take a weekk to clean out of all the crevices. If you don’t know better than to use water on a grease fire; you are too dangerous to be in a kitchen at all.

Acid neutralization…. spilled battery acid can be neutralized and washed away easily.

There is also Sodium Carbonate also known as “Washing Soda”. Never confuse the two.

So ends an installment of kitchen chemistry.

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Daniel Silvers  Follow

If sodium bicarbonate was mixed into some distilled water, and somehow all the bicarbonate was removed from solution, would it be possible to have just sodium in the water? What would the PH be?

No, it would not be possible.

For all values of “somehow”, somehow = no how.

A solution with a preponderance of cations or anions cannot exist.

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Dale Henderson  Follow

No. It is not possible to have a solution that is not neutral overall. Sodium ions are positively charged. If they were not balanced by a negative charge in the solution, the breaker would be shooting off electrical charges as it tried to neutralize itself. When that happens in a cloud, lightning results. If you could have that in a beaker, it would be enjoying lightning bolts. Safe to say that's never been observed. So no, not possible.

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Alison Doran  Follow

Well, you start by asking what was meant by “8.4”. Without any units, “8.4” could mean a lot of different things: 8.4 mol/l ?8.4 %? 8.4 ppm ? 8.4 ppb? a pH of 8.4? Once you have found out, you rewrite the question accordingly.

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David Brower  Follow

It is qualitative Tests for compounds containing C, possibly oxygen,
if we be specific it is used for testing
Carboxylic acids.
Na2CO3 or NaHCO3 solution liberate carbon dioxide.

Carboxylic acids - test with 5% aq. NaHCO3

R-CO2H + NaHCO3 -> R-CO2- Na+ + CO2 ­ + H2O

Sodium hydrogen carbonate reacts with carboxylic acids to give the sodium salt of the acid and liberates carbon dioxide. If the acid is insoluble in water and the reaction is sluggish dissolve the acid in methanol and add carefully to a saturated sodium hydrogen carbonate solution when a vigorous effervescence will be observed.

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Chemistry Man  Follow

8.3, average of the 2 pKa's of Carbonic acid , is the pH of dilute solutions of NaHCO3 (irrespective of concentration upto 0.1M or so, when non ideal ionic interactions start affecting the game).

I'd say about 8, with an uncertainty of 0.5 either way.

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Alvin Funk  Follow

That's because it hydrolyzes in the presence of water to give [math]H_2CO_3[/math] and [math]OH^-[/math] ions.
[math]NaHCO_3 + H_2O ightarrow Na^+ + H_2CO_3 + OH^-[/math]

The presence of hydroxide ions makes it slightly basic. This is because [math]OH^-[/math] is stronger than [math]H_2CO_3[/math].

While sodium bicarbonate acts as a base, it can also act as an acid too. See its reaction with a base:
[math]NaOH + NaHCO_3 ightarrow Na_2CO_3 + H_2O[/math]

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