Buffers are important in chemical and biological reactions. What is a buffer, and what are the...

Buffers are important in chemical and biological reactions. What is a buffer, and what are the criteria that a good biological buffer must have?

Expert Solution

Buffer are a chemical substances that helps in maintaining the relative constant pH of solutions. They resist the change in pH of solutions generating on addition or dilution of small amount of acid or alkali. A buffer is a solution containing a mixture of either an acid and its conjugate base, or a base and its conjugate acid. The acids and bases used in a buffer are quite weak and when a small amount of a strong acid or base is added, the pH doesn't change significantly.

Many biological and chemical reactions require a constant pH for the reaction to proceed; in this cases buffers turns extremely useful.

Criteria of a good biological buffer include: # pKa (logarithmic form of the acid dissociation constant of the weak acid in the buffer) ranging between 6.0 and 8.0, as the optimal pH for most biological reactions lies in this range; #have high water solubility and minimum solubility in organic solvents to remain in the aqueous medium of the biological system; #not permeate into the cell membrane, it should not accumulate in the cellular organelles; #have minimal salt effects as ionic buffers often turns problematic in the biological system; #concentration, temperature and ionic composition of the buffer medium having minimal effect on the buffering capability (pKa); #stable and resist the enzymatic and nonenzymatic degradation; #should not absorb light in the visible or ultraviolet regions of the spectrum; #and the preparation and purification of bufferes are to be easy and inexpensive.

gladiator answered 2 years ago

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