Question: why dose acid bern your skin

Rosie Coates answered on 10 Mar 2014:

This is quite complicated chemistry but I’ll have a go at explaining it.

Acids are very reactive substances, they are known as proton donors. The reason that they are very reactive is because protons are positively charged but they really want to be neutral, or have no charge. They do this by gaining negatively charged electrons. 1 positive charge cancels out 1 negative charge.

When acids touch our skin the positively charged protons react with the compounds that make up our skin and steal electrons from them. This means they change the compounds in our skin and cause damage. The stronger the acid is the more protons there are. The more protons there are the more electrons it will steal and so the more damage it will cause to your skin.