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Explanation- Your welcome
The statement "Although sulfuric acid is a strong electrolyte, an aqueous solution of H₂SO₄ contains more HSO₄⁻ ions than SO₄²⁻ ions is <u>True.</u> This is best explained by the fact that H₂SO₄ <u>is a diprotic acid where only the first hydrogen completely ionizes.</u>
Why?
H₂SO₄ is a diprotic acid. That means that it has <u>two hydrogen ions</u> to give to the solution. The two dissociation reactions are shown below:
H₂SO₄ + H₂O → HSO₄⁻ + H₃O⁺
HSO₄⁻ + H₂O ⇄ SO₄²⁻ + H₃O⁺
As the arrows show, the first dissociation is complete, meaning that all the sulfuric acid that is present initially is dissociated into HSO₄⁻ and H₃O⁺. However, the second dissociation is incomplete, and it's actually an equilibrium with an acid constant (Ka)of 1.2×10⁻².
That means that if the initial concentration of H₂SO₄ was 1M, the concentration of HSO₄⁻ is going to be 1M as well, but <u>the concentration of SO₄²⁻ is going to be much less than 1M</u>, according to the dissociation constant.
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