Like its fellow acids, carborane is incredibly willing to donate a proton (hydrogen atom without an electron) to other substances -- that's what defines the strength of an acid. But what's left ...

Fluoroantimonic acid is the strongest acid in the world; it can rip through most materials easily. But a chemical that you’ve got around your house will stop it cold.

Weak acids, such as ethanoic acid (CH 3 COOH), do not fully dissociate. In fact, about only one per cent of ethanoic acid molecules split up to form H + ions and CH 3 COO – ions at any one time.

The world's strongest acid, at least a million times more potent than concentrated sulphuric acid, has been made in a lab in California. Perhaps confusingly, it is also one of the least corrosive.

The acid called cyanoform or tricyanomethane appears widely in textbooks as one of the strongest carbon-based acids known. Yet despite attempts to make the acid dating back to 1896, cyanoform has ...