# Question 5a06f

Oct 13, 2016

${\text{H"_ ((aq))^(+) + "OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "H"_ 2"O}}_{\left(l\right)}$

#### Explanation:

Nitric acid will react with calcium hydroxide to form aqueous calcium nitrate and water.

The balanced chemical equation that describes this neutralization reaction looks like this

$2 {\text{HNO"_ (3(aq)) + "Ca"("OH")_ (2(aq)) -> "Ca"("NO"_ 3)_ (2(aq)) + 2"H"_ 2"O}}_{\left(l\right)}$

Now, nitric acid is a strong acid, which means that it dissociates completely in aqueous solution to produce hydrogen cations and nitrate anions.

On the other hand, calcium hydroxide is not very soluble in water. However, the nitric acid will increase the solubility of the calcium hydroxide because the hydrogen cations coming from the acid will neutralize the hydroxide anions produced by the base.

You can thus say that the complete ionic equation looks like this

2 xx ["H"_ ((aq))^(+) + "NO"_ (3(aq))^(-)] + "Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+) + 2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-) + 2"H"_ 2"O"_ ((l))#

Now, to get the net ionic equation, you must eliminate the spectator ions, i.e. the ions that are present on both sides of the solution.

You will have

$2 {\text{H"_ ((aq))^(+) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-)))) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)("Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+)))) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> color(red)(cancel(color(black)("Ca"_ ((aq))^(2+)))) + color(red)(cancel(color(black)(2"NO"_ (3(aq))^(-)))) + 2"H"_ 2"O}}_{\left(l\right)}$

This gets you

$2 {\text{H"_ ((aq))^(+) + 2"OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> 2"H"_ 2"O}}_{\left(l\right)}$

which is equivalent to

$\textcolor{g r e e n}{\overline{\underline{| \textcolor{w h i t e}{\frac{a}{a}} \textcolor{b l a c k}{{\text{H"_ ((aq))^(+) + "OH"_ ((aq))^(-) -> "H"_ 2"O}}_{\left(l\right)}} \textcolor{w h i t e}{\frac{a}{a}} |}}}$