Acids and bases touch upon virtually all areas of chemistry, biochemistry, and physiology. This set of lessons will get you started by presenting the underlying concepts in a systematic way. Aside from the section on pH which presumes an elementary knowledge of logarithms, there is no math here.

For your convenience, this lesson set is divided into 7 sections. To access the part you want, click one of the lesson titles immediately below; you can also go directly to any sub-section within a lesson by clicking on a smaller heading.

1- Introduction: What is an acid? What is a base?

2- Aqueous solutions: pH and titration

3- Proton donors and acceptors

If you take the time to master this unit, you are almost guaranteed to pass Chemistry!

4- Competing for the proton: acid-base reactions

How to predict the direction of an acid-base reaction. Spend some time here, and your reward will be a far better understanding of acid-base chemistry.

5- Electron pairs: Lewis acids and bases

6- Structural types of acids and bases

It's important to recognize the structural features that make a substance act as an acid or a base.

7- Gallery of acids and bases you should know

The "descriptive" chemistry covered here usually gets squeezed out of modern chemistry courses, but it's interesting stuff and well worth knowing.