Ammonia is a weak base and takes a hydrogen ion from a water molecule to produce ammonium ions and hydroxide ions. However, the ammonia is only a weak base, and doesn't hang on to the hydrogen ion very successfully. The reaction is reversible, with the great majority of the ammonia at any one time present as free ammonia rather than ammonium
Calcium hydroxide is only slightly soluble in water, but the portion that does dissolve also dissociates into ions. A weak base is a base that ionizes only slightly in an aqueous solution. Recall that a base can be defined as a substance that accepts a hydrogen ion from another substance.
Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) gives the ionization constants for several weak acids; additional ionization constants can be found in Table E1. At equilibrium, a solution of a weak base in water is a mixture of the nonionized base, the conjugate acid of the weak base, and hydroxide ion with the nonionized base present in the greatest concentration.
Sodium hydroxide, a chemical compound with the formula NaOH, is known to be a strong base. This is because sodium hydroxide undergoes almost complete ionization when it is dissolved in water. Weak bases are the basic substances that do not completely ionize in water. An example of a weak base is ammonia.
Weak Acid-Weak Base Neutralization. A weak acid, weak base reaction can be shown by the net ionic equation example: \(H^+ _{(aq)} + NH_{3(aq)} \leftrightharpoons NH^+_{4 (aq)} \) The equivalence point of a neutralization reaction is when both the acid and the base in the reaction have been completely consumed and neither of them are in excess
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which hydroxide is a weak base