Preparation Of Salts
Overview
Somewhere in the building you are sitting in there is almost certainly a bag of plaster, a tub of bath salts, a fertiliser sack or a packet of baking powder. Every one of them is a salt, and every one of them was made on purpose by a chemist who first had to answer a deceptively small question: does the thing I am trying to make dissolve in water or not? That single answer decides everything else. It chooses the starting materials, it chooses the apparatus, and it decides whether the product arrives as crystals grown slowly from a warm liquid or as a cloudy solid that appears in a fraction of a second the instant two clear solutions meet.
This lesson gives you the whole decision tree and then walks each branch of it in detail. You will learn how to sort a salt into soluble or insoluble before you touch a single bottle, the three acid routes to a soluble salt and why a route that works beautifully for copper would be dangerous for sodium, the reason chemists deliberately add too much of one reactant and then throw the leftovers away, and the patient technique that turns a colourless solution into a dish of grown crystals. By the end you will be able to plan a preparation for a salt you have never made, which is precisely what your specification asks of you and precisely what the chemistry paper sets.
Objectives
- Soluble salts can be made from acids by reacting them with: metals - not all metals are suitable; some are too reactive and others are not reactive enough; insoluble bases - the base is added to the acid until no more will react and the excess solid is filtered off; alkalis - an indicator can be used to show when the acid and alkali have completely reacted to produce a salt solution. Students should be able to suggest methods to make a named soluble salt.
- Salt solutions can be crystallised to produce solid salts.
- Insoluble salts can be made by mixing appropriate solutions of ions so that a precipitate is formed. Precipitation can be used to remove unwanted ions from solutions: for example, in treating water for drinking or in treating effluent. Students should be able to name the substances needed to make a named insoluble salt.
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Lesson Note
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Lesson Evaluation
Congratulations on completing the lesson on Preparation Of Salts. Now that youve explored the key concepts and ideas, its time to put your knowledge to the test. This section offers a variety of practice questions designed to reinforce your understanding and help you gauge your grasp of the material.
You will encounter a mix of question types, including multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, and essay questions. Each question is thoughtfully crafted to assess different aspects of your knowledge and critical thinking skills.
Use this evaluation section as an opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the topic and to identify any areas where you may need additional study. Don't be discouraged by any challenges you encounter; instead, view them as opportunities for growth and improvement.
- Which salt is produced when copper(II) oxide reacts with dilute nitric acid? A. copper(II) nitrate B. copper(II) sulfate C. copper(II) chloride D. copper(II) carbonate Answer: A
- Which of these salts is insoluble in water? A. sodium carbonate B. potassium sulfate C. barium sulfate D. zinc nitrate Answer: C
- A student adds excess magnesium oxide to warm dilute hydrochloric acid, then filters the mixture. What passes through the filter paper? A. magnesium oxide only B. magnesium chloride solution C. hydrochloric acid only D. solid magnesium chloride Answer: B
- Which pair of solutions would produce a precipitate of silver chloride? A. silver nitrate and sodium nitrate B. sodium chloride and potassium nitrate C. silver nitrate and sodium chloride D. silver chloride and sodium nitrate Answer: C
- Why can potassium nitrate not be prepared by adding excess potassium hydroxide to nitric acid and filtering? A. Potassium nitrate is insoluble in water. B. Potassium hydroxide dissolves, so an excess of it cannot be filtered off. C. Nitric acid does not react with potassium hydroxide. D. The reaction produces a gas that must be measured. Answer: B
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