PH Explained
The scale of PH refers to how acidic or how basic a chemical is. The scale ranges from 0, which represents extremely acidic substances such as battery acid, to 14, which covers extremely basic substances such as lye and household drain cleaners. Pure water is considered to be in the center of this scale at 7, and is neutral. This means that pure water is neither acidic or basic. Moving up one step on the scale in either direction means that the next level is 10 times more acidic or more basic (depending on the direction) than the last step. Seawater, with a PH of 8, is 10 times more basic than pure water. On the other hand, urine or saliva, which both have a PH of 6, are 10 times more acidic than pure water.
Mixing Acids
Any acidic solution, when a base chemical is added to it, will achieve a higher PH balance than it had before. For instance, adding pure water to battery acid will bring up its PH level. The more pure water that's added, the higher the PH rating of an acidic substance will become, and the less acidic the solution will be. Simply by adding pure water, though, an acidic compound can only reach a certain PH. Because the acid is still present, it can never reach 7 or above on the PH scale, because the pure water cannot dilute the acid further than 6. To make an acidic compound reach a PH higher than 6, a chemical with a higher PH than pure water would need to be added.
Extremes
While the process described here is the same (but in reverse) for bases, it is best to be very careful when dealing with chemicals that have either a very high or a very low PH value. Acids at 0 and bases at 14 are extremely reactive materials, and will burn a person's flesh, or even other more durable materials. As a result, mixing chemicals at either extreme of the PH scale (such as mixing bleach with ammonia) can lead to unwanted and dangerous reactions. Whenever you are attempting to make a chemical less basic or less acidic, though, pure water is often the best choice for a solution, since it's right in the middle of the scale.
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