PH a pH of 7.3. This is clearly wrong as an acid solution should have a pH of less than 7. Treating the system as a mixture of hydrochloric acid and the amphoteric substance water, a pH of 6.89 results. A weak acid or the conjugate acid of a weak base can be treated using the same formalism. First, an acid dissociation constant is defined as follows. Electrical charges are omitted from subsequent equations for the sake of generality and its value is assumed to have been determined by experiment. This being so, there are three unknown concentrations, [HA], [H] and
Glutamic acid The radical corresponding to glutamate is called glutamyl. When glutamic acid is dissolved in water, the amino group (-) may gain a proton (), and/or the carboxyl groups may lose protons, depending on the acidity of the medium. In sufficiently acidic environments, the amino group gains a proton and the molecule becomes a cation with a single positive charge, HOOC-CH()-()-COOH. At pH values between about 2.5 and 4.1, the carboxylic acid closer to the amine generally loses a proton, and the acid becomes the neutral zwitterion OOC-CH()-()-COOH. This is also the form of the compound in the crystalline solid state.