Question

The lowe the pH number the (higher or lower) _________ the hydrogen ion concentration.

Answer 1

The correct answer is "Higher", hence the statement becomes The lower the pH number the higher the hydrogen ion concentration.

Step-by-step explanation:

By the definition of pH we have

`pH=-log[H^(+)]`

where

`[H^(+)]` is the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution in moles/Liter

Thus the concentration of
`H^(+)` ions in a solution is obtained by taking anti-log on both sides of the equation above thus we have

`[H^(+)]=antilog(-pH)\\\\\therefore [H^(+)]=10^(-pH)\\\\\therefore [H^(+)]=(1)/(10^(pH))`

Thus we can observe lower the pH of a solution higher is the hydrogen ion concentration in the solution since the 2 are inversely related.