hi guys
simple question, but i have no idea what to do.
Q. How much water must be added to 1.0 L of a solution of a strong base of pH 13.0 in order to decrease the pH to 12.0?
thanks 
ok, pH decrease by 1 from 13 to 12 means a 10fold dilution (logarithmic scale)
So you want to turn 1 L of solution into 10 L. Hence add 9 L of water.
Just in case you want to augment this with hard calculations to help understand, you can view it like so;
Q. How much water must be added to 1.0 L of a solution of a strong base of pH 13.0 in order to decrease the pH to 12.0?
pH 13.0 = pOH 1.0
Therefore, [OH-] = 10^-1M
Therefore, n(OH-) = 1.0L * 10^-1M = 0.10mol
pH 12.0 = pOH 2.0
Therefore, [OH-] = 10^-2M
That is, we're trying to have a solution of concentration 10^-2M of OH- ions, and we know the
amount of OH- we have is 0.10mol. Since c = n/v, we can work out the volume of such a solution;
v = n/c = 0.10mol/0.010M = 10L
We already had 1L, so add 9L more.
That either overcomplicated things for you, or helped clarify them - I hope it was the latter!
