The Bronsted-Lowry acid-base theory defines an acid as a substance that donates a proton, or hydrogen ion, and a base as a substance that accepts one, broadening the earlier Arrhenius definition, which had required acids and bases to release hydrogen or hydroxide ions specifically in water. Danish chemist Johannes Nicolaus Bronsted and English chemist Thomas Martin Lowry independently proposed the theory in 1923, and it introduced the concept of conjugate acid-base pairs, in which every acid has a corresponding base formed once it has donated its proton. The theory extended acid-base chemistry to reactions in solvents other than water and remains the definition most widely taught and used in general chemistry today.
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