Unknown Acid Problem
Your company has just purchased a warehouse containing an old chemistry laboratory, and the first order of business is to take inventory of the chemicals in the stockroom so that you can properly dispose of them according to current EPA regulations. Unfortunately, the previous chemist did not label the bottles very thoroughly and left two bottles marked simply "acid" with no further information. Fortunately you find an old notebook in the lab with a table of the acids used by the previous chemist. (See table below).
You decide that you can collect some experimental data which will enable you to both (1) identify the unknown acids by comparison with the lab notebook information, and (2) determine their concentrations. Since the disposal of unidentified chemicals is more expensive than that of known compounds, a few hours of lab work can translate into considerable savings for your company.
| Acid | pKa |
| crotonic | 4.69 |
| methylmalonic | 3.07 |
| diphenylacetic | 3.94 |
| picric | strong |
| alloxanic | 6.64 |
| methyl-m-aminobenzoic | 5.10 |
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