Answer/Explanation:
What is meant by diprotic acid?
A diprotic acid is the type of acid that can undergo one or two dissociations depending on the pH.
A diprotic acid is represented by H2A.
Dissociation of a diprotic acid does not happen all at once.
It has two steps of dissociation and each dissociation step has its own Ka value. The step 1 and step 2 Ka values are designated Ka1 and Ka2 respectively.
Back to the question,
At equilibrium,
Step 1
pKa1 = -log(Ka1) = -log(2.27 × 10^−4) = 3.64
Step 2
pKa2 = -log(Ka2) = -log(4.00 x 10^-11) = 10.40
The pH of H2A is given by
-log(molar concentration)
pH = -log(0.103) = -(-0.987) = 0.987. Approximately equals to 1