chemical compounds: salts?

Question

How do you identify salts from non-salts in chemical compounds? Please be very basic.

Answer 1

Salts are composed of ions, and will have one or more cations and one or more anions. So, from their formulas, anything which contains a cation and an anion is a salt. In your text or class notes, you should have a list of a bunch of common cations and anions, so you shouldn't have trouble recognizing salts from their formulas.

In a practical sense, if a salt is soluble in water, its solution will conduct electricity. So, while pure water has a very low conductivity, a solution of a salt like KNO3 will have a much higher conductivity.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Basically salts are compounds made of cation (positive ion) and anion (negative ion).
By the chemical formula you can quickly categorize a subtance to be a salt if the it begins with metal ion (e.g. Na, K, Ba, Fe) and ends with non-metal ion (e.g. SO4, Cl, PO4, Br).
By the way, not all salts taste salty! Don't lick it.
However, this is just basic definition. Hope it useful for you!

Answer 3

A salt is an ionic compound made up of a metal cation and a non-metal anion. Common "table" salt is made up of Sodium Chloride (NaCl), but there are many many other types of salts out there, not just the one white crystal everyone is familiar with.

Answer 4

The term salt is also applied to substances produced by the reaction of an acid with a base, known as a neutralization reaction.
Salts are characterized by ionic bonds, relatively high melting points, electrical conductivity when melted or when in solution, and a crystalline structure when in the solid state.

Answer 5

salts are composed of the metal (cation ) of an alkaline and the anion of an acid . they are soluble in water.