Acid/base Chemistry
The higher the proton affinity, the stronger the base and the weaker the conjugate acid in the gas phase. The strongest known base is the methanide anion (Epa = 1743 kJ/mol), slightly stronger than the hydride ion (Epa = 1675 kJ/mol), making methane the weakest proton acid in the gas phase, followed by dihydrogen. The weakest known base is the helium atom (Epa = 177.8 kJ/mol), making the hydrohelium(1+) ion the strongest known proton acid.
Read more about this topic: Proton Affinity
Famous quotes containing the words base and/or chemistry:
“When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes asquint.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Science with its retorts would have put me to sleep; it was the opportunity to be ignorant that I improved. It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before. I believed that the woods were not tenantless, but choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day,—not an empty chamber, in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house,—and for a few moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)