Activity:
Take about 1g solid NaCl in a clean and dry test tube and add some concentrated sulphuric acid to it. Fit a rubber cork with a small delivery tube in the mouth of the test tube. Concentrated sulphuric acid reacts with sodium chloride to form hydrogen chloride gas. The hydrogen chloride gas starts coming out of the open end of the glass tube.
Now, hold a ‘dry’ blue litmus paper in HCl gas. There is no change in colour of the ‘dry’ blue litmus paper. This shows that HCl gas does not behave as an acid in the absence of water. However, when we hold a ‘moist’ blue litmus paper in HCl gas, we will see that the ‘moist’ blue litmus paper turns red. This indicates that HCl gas shows acidic behavior in the presence of water as hydrogen ions are formed. This proves that acids produce ions only in aqueous solutions or in presence of water.
