Question

How are salts named? Give two examples.

Answer 1

The name of a salt is derived on the basis of the reactants involved in its preparation. The salts are named after the metal supplied by the base and the radical supplied by the acid.

Example 1: Sodium chloride (common salt) is formed from hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. The name ‘sodium’ is supplied by the metal of the sodium hydroxide, and the name ‘chloride’ is supplied by the acid, which is a negative radical.
$\mathrm{HCl}+\mathrm{NaOH}\underset{}{\to }\mathrm{NaCl}+{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}$

Example 2: Ammonium sulphate (salt) is formed from sulphuric acid and ammonium hydroxide. The name ‘ammonium’ is supplied by the ammonium radical of the base, while the name ‘sulphate’ is supplied by the negative radical of sulphuric acid.
${\mathrm{H}}_2{\mathrm{SO}}_4+{\mathrm{NH}}_4\mathrm{OH}\underset{}{\to {\left({\mathrm{NH}}_4\right)}_2{\mathrm{SO}}_4+{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}}$