Conjugate Acid-Base Pairs

An acid-base reaction always contains two conjugate acid-base pairs.

Interact with the following animation illustrating how acid-base reactions always contains two conjugate acid-base pairs.

Two important points can be drawn from the above animation:

  1. An acid in aqueous solutions always produces a species capable of acting as a base. Similarly, a base in solution always produces a substance capable of acting as an acid.
  2. An acid-base equation contains an acid and base for the forward reaction and an acid and base for the reverse reaction.