General Chemistry for the Health Care Professions

General Chemistry
for the
Health Care Professions

shpslogo.jpg (6992 bytes)

Version1.0

1 -13. NAMING SALTS

A salt is an ionic compound containing some cation other than hydrogen and some anion other than hydroxide and oxide. Since the compound must be electrically neutral, the total positive valence (from all of the cations) must equal the total negative valence (from all the anions). This gives us a method for determining the valence of any particular ion in the formula. The names for salts are made by writing the name of the cation followed by the name of the anion. For example, CaCl₂ has calcium as the cation and chloride as the anion, so the compound is called calcium chloride. FeSO₄ has sulfate as the anion, but we need to know whether the ion is ferrous ion or ferric ion. This is easy for us to do: since we know the total negative valence (from sulfate) is -2, the total positive valence (for iron) must be +2; therefore, it is ferrous ion. The compound is ferrous sulfate.

Examples

KBr is potassium bromide
Mg(NO₃)₂ is magnesium nitrate
BaSO₄ is barium sulfate
BiOCl is bismuth oxychloride
HgCl₂ is mercuric chloride (mercury (II) chloride)

CuSO₄ is cupric sulfate (copper (II) sulfate)
Al(OH)₂Cl is aluminum dihydroxychloride
NaHCO₃ is sodium bicarbonate (sodium hydrogen carbonate)
PbSO₄ is plumbous sulfate (lead (II) sulfate)
KBrO₃ is potassium bromate

Original content of this course is supplied by Academy of Health Sciences
Fort Sam Houston, Tx.