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Asked by 101owen101 to Jonathan, Samantha, Sam on 5 Jul 2012.
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Jonathan Kay answered on 5 Jul 2012:
Acids can be strong in different ways.
To a chemist it would be fluoroantimonic acid, I think.
Hydrofluoric acid is used to etch glass. This can give beautiful effects. You can see this in some old pub windows.
Aqua regia is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid. It was historically very important because it can dissolve gold.
Your stomach contains acid. This is probably to help you digest food, and to kill bacteria that you have swallowed. Lots of people get pain from the acid in their stomach.
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Samantha Weaver answered on 6 Jul 2012:
I found this article : http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041115/full/news041115-5.html
The world’s strongest acid, at least a million times more potent than concentrated sulphuric acid, has been made in a lab in California. Perhaps confusingly, it is also one of the least corrosive.
The compound, called a carborane acid, is the first ‘superacid’ that can be stored in a bottle, say its creators. The previous record-holder, fluorosulphuric acid, is so corrosive that it would eat straight through the glass.
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Sam Chilka answered on 6 Jul 2012:
In scientific terms, the “strength” of an acid is defined as how easily it can release hydrogen ions to other substances. Why is this important? Well chemists can use this acids in this way to create new substances.
To most people however the “strength” of an acid is how easily it can dissolve or eat through other things. As Samantha and Jonathan have said, carborane acid doesn’t eat through or dissolve things, so it can be stored in a glas bottle. Flurosulphuric acid and fluoroantimonic acid are very corrosive though, that is they will eat through alomost anything!
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