Question

The lowe the pH number the (higher or lower) _________ the hydrogen ion concentration.

Answer 1

Answer:

The correct answer is "Higher", hence the statement becomes The lower the pH number the higher the  hydrogen ion concentration.

Explanation:

By the definition of pH we have

$pH=-log[H^{+}]$

where

$[H^{+}]$ is the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution in moles/Liter

Thus the concentration of $H^{+}$ ions in a solution is obtained by taking anti-log on both sides of the equation above thus we have

$[H^{+}]=antilog(-pH)\\\\\therefore [H^{+}]=10^{-pH}\\\\\therefore [H^{+}]=\frac{1}{10^{pH}}$

Thus we can observe lower the pH of a solution higher is the hydrogen ion concentration in the solution since the 2 are inversely related.