What do you understand by the term ’auto-protolysis’ of water? What is its significance?

Explanation

Auto-protolysis of water refers to its self ionisation as shown below.

Autoprotolysis of water makes it amphoteric in nature. Therefore, water reacts with both acids and bases. It acts as a base towards acids stronger than itself and as an acid towards bases stronger than itself. For example,
`underset("acid")(H_(2)O(l))+underset("Base")(NH_(3)(aq))hArrNH_(4)^(+)(aq)+OH^(-)(aq)`
`underset("Base")(H_(2)O(l))+underset("Acid")(H_(2)S(aq))hArrH_(3)O^(+)(aq)+HS^(-)(aq)`