Question

Give a chemical test to distinguish between the following pairs of compounds:

Sodium chloride solution and sodium nitrate solution.

Answer 1

Test for Sodium chloride solution and sodium nitrate solution:

• Sodium chloride $\left(\mathrm{NaCl}\right)$ in reaction with silver nitrate $\left({\mathrm{AgNO}}_3\right)$ gives white precipitates of silver chloride$\left(\mathrm{AgCl}\right)$.
• Whereas, sodium nitrate $\left({\mathrm{NaNO}}_3\right)$ does not give a white precipitate with silver nitrate$\left({\mathrm{AgNO}}_3\right)$.
• The chemical Reaction is as follows.

$\underset{\mathrm{Sodium}\mathrm{chloride}}{\mathrm{NaCl}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Silver}\mathrm{nitrate}}{{\mathrm{AgNO}}_3\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}⟶\underset{\mathrm{Silver}\mathrm{chloride}(\mathrm{White}\mathrm{ppt}.)}{\mathrm{AgCl}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)}+\underset{\mathrm{Sodium}\mathrm{nitatre}}{{\mathrm{NaNO}}_3\left(\mathrm{aq}\right)}$