water is protophoic solvent or protophillic or amphirprotic or arproti solvent
Answers
Leveling effect or solvent levelingrefers to the effect of solvent on the properties of acids and bases. The strength of a strong acid is limited ("leveled") by the basicity of the solvent. Similarly the strength of a strong base is leveled by the acidity of the solvent. When a strong acid is dissolved in water, it reacts with it to form hydronium ion(H3O+).[2] An example of this would be the following reaction, where "HA" is the strong acid:
HA + H2O → A− + H3O+Any acid that is stronger than H3O+reacts with H2O to form H3O+. Therefore, no acid stronger than H3O+ exists in H2O. Similarly, when ammonia is the solvent, the strongest acid is ammonium (NH4+), thus HCl and a super acid exert the same acidifying effect.
The same argument applies to bases. In water, OH− is the strongest base. Thus, even though sodium amide (NaNH2) is an exceptional base (pKa of NH3 ~ 33), in water it is only as good as sodium hydroxide. On the other hand, NaNH2 is a far more basic reagent in ammonia than is NaOH.
The pH range allowed by a particular solvent is called the acid-base discrimination window