It isn’t because Arrhenius bases give off OH- ions when placed in water and ammonia doesn’t have the hydroxide ion, so it clearly can’t give off OH- when dissolved.
It isn’t.
Arrhenius bases give off OH- ions when placed in water. Ammonia doesn’t have the hydroxide ion, so it clearly can’t give off OH- when dissolved.
It’s the very fact that ammonia is known to behave as a base that caused people to rethink the Arrhenius definition and go with the Bronsted-Lowry definition instead. In that definition, a base picks up H+, which is exactly what ammonia does in solution.
OK.
Detailed and organized can be on this site http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Acids_and_Bases/Acid
