What is #"orthophosphoric acid"#?

1 Answer
anor277
Aug 5, 2017

You've had this question out for over a year..........and.........

Explanation:

..........and you might as well ask why the molecular formula of methane is #CH_4#, or the molecular formula of sodium chloride is #NaCl#.

#H_3PO_4#, #"phosphoric acid"#, in the old literature #"orthophosphoric acid"#, is a fairly weak mineral acid, known to form equilibrium quantities of #H_2PO_4^(-)# and #HPO_4^(2-)# in aqueous solution. The third dissociation to give #PO_4^(3-)# can usually be ignored in aqueous solution.

Related questions
See all questions in Covalent Formulas and Nomenclature
Impact of this question
1911 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License