How can I find if an everyday object is a base? Like if you look in the ingredients of something how can you tell what ingredient is a base?

Question

bunnielover948 · Answer

@Somy @mathstudent55 @sweetburger @pooja195

kainui · Answer

Well, if you look at ingredients you can probably find their pH or pKa value online which relates to base strength. High pH corresponds to strong basicity. 

Just because something is a base doesn't necessarily mean it's a good base either. Every strong acid has a conjugate weak base to go with it, since you can consider an acid to be something that's good at losing a hydrogen, the molecule you have left afterwards is really just a weak base that's bad at accepting a hydrogen, which is just the reverse reaction.

If you know the structure of a molecule you can know whether or not it's likely to be a base depending on several things, one of which is sort of like the opposite perspective on accepting a proton, a good base can also be seen as being a good electron donor. 

You could also tell if it has a base by seeing if it reacts with an acid.

I dunno if this answers your question or not, but here are some possibilities.

pink_skittles · Answer

Here is an image I find helpful