Salts

Definitions

Soluble – Something that dissolves in water

Insoluble – Something that doesn’t dissolve in water

Solute – Something dissolved in a solution

Salt – An ionic compound formed from the neutralisation reaction of a base and an acid.

Making Soluble Salts

So, let’s tackle this one first: how to make soluble salts? Essentially to create a soluble salt, you have to react an acid with one of the following:

• Some metals (some are too reactive, some aren’t reactive enough)
• Alkalis (soluble bases)
• Insoluble bases

So how do you do that? Well, here are the various steps involved :

Alkalis

If you’re using an alkali (AKA: soluble base) to make your salt, the steps involved are nice and simple. You simply add the alkali to the acid until you’ve created a neutral solution (you could use universal indicator, or a digital pH monitor – neutral solutions have a pH of 7.0) – then just evaporate the water in the solution and you’re left with salt crystals. The slower you evaporate the water, the larger the crystals will be.

Insoluble bases

When making soluble salts from an insoluble base, here’s the plan: You have to keep adding the insoluble base until the base and the acid won’t react any more, then, just filter the excess solids and you’re left with soluble salt!

Metals

A salt is formed when the H+ ion in an acid is replaced…