PH parturition
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pH
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

 partition
is the tendency for acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...

s to accumulate in basic fluid compartments, and bases to accumulate in acidic compartments. The reason for this phenomenon is that acids become negatively electric charge
Electric charge
Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...

d in basic fluids, since they donate a proton
Proton
The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....

. On the other hand, bases become positively electric charged in acid fluids, since they receive a proton. Since electric charge decrease the membrane permeability of substances, once an acid enters a basic fluid and becomes electrically charged, then it cannot escape that compartment with ease and therefore accumulates, and vice versa with bases.

See also

  • Ion trapping
    Ion trapping
    The term ion trapping is used to describe the build-up of a higher concentration of a chemical across a cell membrane due to the pKa value of the chemical and difference of pH across the cell membrane...

  • Acid dissociation constant
    Acid dissociation constant
    An acid dissociation constant, Ka, is a quantitative measure of the strength of an acid in solution. It is the equilibrium constant for a chemical reaction known as dissociation in the context of acid-base reactions...

     - pKa
  • Henderson-Hasselbalch equation
    Henderson-Hasselbalch equation
    In chemistry, the Henderson–Hasselbalch equation describes the derivation of pH as a measure of acidity in biological and chemical systems...

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