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.

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