Question

Is there any olfactory indicators of acids and bases

Answer 1

Olfactory indicators are substances which change their smell or odour when they react with bases or acids.

e.g:. vanilla, clove, onion

vanilla: when a small amount of NaOH solution (base) is added to vanilla extract, then the smell of vanilla gets suppressed.

However on adding a small amount of HCl (acid) to the extract the smell doesn't get suppressed.

Thus vanilla helps in identifying an acid and a base....

Answer 2

Olfactory indicators can be used in the laboratory to test whether a solution is a base or an acid, a process called olfactory titration.