Unknown Acid Problem

Your company has just purchased a warehouse containing an old chemistry laboratory, and the first order of business is to take inventory of the chemicals in the stockroom so that you can properly dispose of them according to current EPA regulations. Unfortunately, the previous chemist did not label the bottles very thoroughly and left two bottles marked simply "acid" with no further information. Fortunately you find an old notebook in the lab with a table of the acids used by the previous chemist. (See table below).

You decide that you can collect some experimental data which will enable you to both (1) identify the unknown acids by comparison with the lab notebook information, and (2) determine their concentrations. Since the disposal of unidentified chemicals is more expensive than that of known compounds, a few hours of lab work can translate into considerable savings for your company.

Acid pKa
crotonic 4.69
methylmalonic 3.07
diphenylacetic 3.94
picric strong
alloxanic 6.64
methyl-m-aminobenzoic 5.10

You can submit your answers up to three times. If all three answers are incorrect, you will be given the correct answer and asked to reload the page and try a new problem. Please be aware that reloading the page will result in having to start a new problem.

Activity 1: Determine the unknown acid in the first bottle