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pH and hydrogen ion concentration calculator

Convert between pH, pOH and hydrogen or hydroxide ion concentration, at 25 °C.

pH
3.5
[H⁺]316.2 µmol/L
pOH10.5
[OH⁻]31.62 pmol/L
Characteracidic

The pH + pOH = 14 relationship holds at 25 °C. Kw changes with temperature.

pH is the negative base-10 logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration in moles per litre. The logarithm is there because those concentrations span fourteen orders of magnitude, which is unwieldy to write out.

pH = −log₁₀[H⁺]   [H⁺] = 10^(−pH)   pH + pOH = 14

Each unit is a factor of ten

A solution at pH 3 has ten times the hydrogen ion concentration of one at pH 4, and a hundred times that of pH 5. This is why lemon juice at pH 2 is enormously more acidic than coffee at pH 5, despite the numbers looking close.

The 14 is not a hard boundary

Water self-ionises, and at 25 °C the product [H⁺][OH⁻] equals 1.0 × 10⁻¹⁴, which is where the 14 comes from. It shifts with temperature: at 50 °C neutral water sits at pH 6.63, still neutral but numerically lower. Concentrated strong acids can also give pH values below 0, and strong bases above 14.

Strong versus weak

A strong acid dissociates completely, so 0.1 M HCl gives [H⁺] = 0.1 and pH 1. A weak acid does not: 0.1 M acetic acid gives pH around 2.9, because only about 1% of it ionises. Calculating weak-acid pH requires the acid dissociation constant Ka and usually a quadratic.

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