Created: January 22, 2022
Modified: January 22, 2022
Modified: January 22, 2022
salt
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.In chemistry, a salt is a neutral-ish (not too acidic nor basic) compound held together by an ionic bond.
Salts can be formed by acid-base reactions. For example, when sodium hydroxide (NaOH, a base) reacts with hydrochloric acid (HCl):
- The acid donates its hydrogen proton to the (OH)- group of the base, forming H2O.
- The remaining Na+ cation and Cl- anion bond to form table salt, NaCl.
Ionic compounds such as salts tend to be water-soluble due to being polar. Because of the strong bond, they tend to be solid at room temperature, and these solids tend to be crystals, because a repeating pattern is formed when the anion tries to surround itself with cations and vice versa.