Base (chemistry) Base (chemistry) In chemistry, bases are substances that, in aqueous solution, release hydroxide (OH) ions, are slippery to the touch, can taste bitter if an alkali, change the color of indicators (e.g., turn red litmus paper blue), react with acids to form salts, promote certain chemical reactions (base catalysis), accept protons from any proton donor or contain completely or partially displaceable OH ions. Examples of bases are the hydroxides of the alkali metals and the alkaline earth metals (NaOH, Ca(OH), etc., see alkali hydroxide and alkaline earth hydroxide). These particular substances produce hydroxide ions (OH) in aqueous solutions, and are
Chemistry: A Volatile History and other elements, it was possible to create new compounds by design and industrial chemistry was born. Two decades after the world's first plastic – Bakelite – had been invented in 1907, Wallace Carothers successfully drew off a fibre from the interface of two liquids: hexane-1,6-diamine and decanedioyl-dichloride, which could be spun into a very fine, very strong thread. It was given the name nylon. Shockingly, only three weeks after the patent for nylon had been filed, a depressed Carothers slipped another carbon based compound into his own drink, potassium cyanide, and killed himself. Evidently, industrial chemistry wasn’t without its