Learn.
What is salt? The first thing that probably comes to mind is an ocean or table salt. However, in chemistry this is only one specific example of a salt. A salt, such as Sodium Chloride or table salt, is due to an ionic bond between a metal and a non metal – that’s it, that is the definition. The metal is sodium and the non metal is chloride, have a look at the position of each of these on a periodic table.
Metals sit on the left hand side and nonmetals sit on the right hand side, they are separated by a staircase in red as you can see above.
An acid reacts with a base to form salt and water, this equation is generally true for all acid base reactions.
acid + base –> salt + water
An example of this is reacting hydrochloric acid, HCl, with sodium hydroxide, NaOH. This will for sodium chloride, NaCl and water, H2O.
When naming ionic products, you use the metal derivative first followed by the non metal. When these are ionically bonded together the non metal is the anion and the metal is referred to as the cation.
Master.
Question 1.
Have a go at predicting the salt formed between:
- Hydrochloric acid + potassium hydroxide
- Hydrochloric acid + magnesium hydroxide
- Hydrogen bromine + magnesium hydroxide
- H2SO4 + KOH [Extension]
Have a go at completing the formulas in ionic equations:
- Hydrochloric acid + potassium hydroxide
- Hydrochloric acid + magnesium hydroxide
- Hydrogen bromine + magnesium hydroxide
- H2SO4 + KOH [Extension]
Write down the ionic equation of the following salts:
- Hydrochloric acid + potassium hydroxide
- Hydrochloric acid + magnesium hydroxide
- Hydrogen bromine + magnesium hydroxide
- H2SO4 + KOH [Extension]