How does ammonia react with water to make a basic solution?

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sodium sulfate — acid–base reaction Sodium sulfate, also called Glauber's salt, is, like other salts, the product of an acid-base reaction.

When ammonia (NH₃) dissolves in water, it reacts to form a basic solution by acting as a base that accepts a proton from a water molecule. In this process, the water molecule acts as an acid, donating a proton to the ammonia molecule.1

The chemical equation for this reaction is:
$H_{2} O + {NH}_{3} ⇌ {OH}^{-} + {NH}_{4}^{+}$

As shown in the equation, the reaction produces hydroxide ions (OH⁻) and ammonium ions (NH₄⁺). The presence of these hydroxide ions is what makes the resulting aqueous solution basic. While older chemical formulations sometimes referred to this as the formation of ammonium hydroxide (NH₄OH), it is now understood that this species does not exist as a stable compound, but rather as a weak, hydrogen-bonded complex of ammonia and water.123