This is the the first part in a series of three problems dealing with acid-base properties of aqueous salts. Potassium acetate is used as a deicer for the airport runways because it is less corrosive and less damaging to soil than other salts. What is the reaction for the ion, which reacts with water. The first thing we need to do is look at what potassium acetate does itself in water. So we have the formula for potassium acetate, which is CH3COOK and because it's a strong electrolyte, it completely dissociates into K+ and acetate ions. So what we really have in solution are K+ ions and acetate ions. Now, we need to decide, what are each of those ions going to do? If I look at K+ in water, what I'm going to see is that there is no reaction that will occur. The only possible product that could form would be KOH, which is a strong base and will completely disassociate so we get no reaction. The other ion, which is acetate, CH3COO- reacting with water is actually an equilibrium with CH3 COOH, + Now, because this substance that forms the CH3 COOH is a weak acid, some of it will remain in the acidic form. And so we'll get to an equilibrium where we have some acetate ion with our water and we'll have a small amount of acetic acid forming, as well as some hydroxide ion.