pKa values in organic chemistry – Making maximum use of the available data

Acids and bases are ubiquitous. Sometimes, it is essential to know the accurate strength (pKa values) of the acids/bases to work with, but sometimes just acidity/basicity order is enough. We often receive requests to measure pKa values of different substances in different solvents for answering questions like “what acids can be used to protonate this substance” or “what base is able to deprotonate that compound?” Such questions can, in fact, often be answered using published pKa data in different solvents. This digest/tutorial will give an overview of how to make efficient use of the existing pKa data.