Question

What happens when sodium hydroxide reacts with sulphuric acid?

Answer 1

Hint: Sodium hydroxide is the hydroxide of an alkali metal and is therefore basic in nature and sulphuric acid is a strong diprotic acid. Acids and bases react with each other to give salt and water as a by -product. The salt can be acidic, basic or neutral.

Complete answer:
The reaction that takes place between an acid and a base to give out salt and water as the final products is known as a neutralization reaction.
The salt formation utilizes one or more cations from the base and anions from the acid resulting in an ionic compound. The charge or valency of the cation in base and that of the anion in acid is used to determine the chemical formula of the salt formed.
Sodium hydroxide is a strong base that dissociates to give sodium cation and hydroxide anion. Sulphuric acid is a diprotic acid which means it releases two moles of hydrogen ions per more of the acid. Apart from giving hydrogen ions, it also gives sulphate anions. Thus two moles of univalent sodium ions combine with one mole of divalent sulphate ions to give sodium sulphate as the salt. Since the acidic strength of sulphuric acid and the basic strength of sodium hydroxide is nearly the same, sodium sulphate is a neutral salt. The hydroxide and hydrogens ions combine to give water.

The neutralization reaction between sodium hydroxide and sulphuric acid can be represented by the following chemical equation:
 $ NaOH(aq) + {H_2}S{O_4}(aq) \to N{a_2}S{O_4}(aq) + {H_2}O(l) $

Note:
Neutralization reaction is a highly exothermic reaction which means that a lot of heat is evolved in the process that leads to a sudden rise in the temperature of the container in which the reaction is being carried out, especially in the case of neutralization between a strong acid and strong base.