What Are Buffer Solutions Used In?
The Usefulness of Buffers Buffer solutions are one of the most important types of chemical reagent used in chemical research, biological research and industry. Their usefulness stems mostly from their ability to resist changes in pH. If you paid attention in science class, you may recall that pH is a unit of a solution’s acidity. For the purpose of this discussion, acidity can be defined as the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in solution. How acidic a solution is affects which reactions take place, and how quickly. The ability to control pH is crucial to successfully completing a large number of chemical reactions, and so buffer solutions have a vast number of applications. But first, it’s important to understand how buffer solutions work. Acids and Conjugate Bases Buffer solutions are usually a combination of an acid and its conjugate base. As we learned above, acidity can be defined as the concentration of H+ ions in solution. Therefore, acids are compounds that release H+ ions i
