Salts and acids

By irtazakuragi
Class 8 green
 Salts:
When you think about salt you probably think of the salt
you put in your food, as a flavouring. This is sodium
chloride. But there are many other kinds of salts, for
example, copper sulfate, potassium nitrate and calcium
carbonate.

Many salts have important uses in everyday life.

Examples:

Calcium sulfate a salt and is magnesium carbonate is used in

Used to make blackboard ch- sports so hands don't slip.
-alk.

ammonium nitrate is used as Sodium chloride is preserved in

a fertilizer to help plants grow. Food as a flavouring.
Acids and Salts:
Every day, the chemical industry makes hundreds of thousands of tonnes
of different salts. Many methods for making sales start with acids.

All acids contain hydrogen.The table below gives the formula of the

three common acids that you find in the laboratory The table also

shows some examples of the salts that can be formed from these acids

Two other acids that you may meet are carbonic acid and citric acid.
Carbonic acid is a weak acid that is formed when carbon dioxide reacts
with water. Salts made from carbonic acid are called carbonates

Citric acid is found in citrus fruits, such as oranges and lemons. Salts
formed using citric acid are called citrates.
Some common example of acids are below on table

Name of acid Salt formed from acid Example of salt

Hydrochloric acid Chlorides Sodium chloride
Sulfuric acid Sulfates Copper sulfate
Nitric acid Nitrates Potassium nitrate
Preparing a salt using metal &
acids:
We know how metals react with dilute acids. This is often a good way of
making a salt.

The general equation for the reaction of metals with acid is

acid metal -salt + hydrogen

The equation for the reaction between zinc and hydrochloric acid is

zinc + hydrochloric acid zinc chloride + hydrogen

Making salt by metal oxide:

Some metals will not react with acids to make salts. For example, silver
and copper are too unreactive to displace hydrogen from an acid.

So we have to find another way of making salts from unreactive metals. We

can do this by starting with a metal oxide.

Making the salt copper sulfate:

Safety: Remember not to boil the acid. Be careful when heating the
evaporating basin as the solution may spat and burn you.

1 Pour about 100 cm' of sulfuric acid into a 250 m

beaker. Add black copper oxide powder to the acid in

the beaker. 2 Heat the mixture very gently, stirring all the time.

Safety: Do not boil the mixture. Harmful fumes may be given off.
3 When the mixture changes colour to blur turn off the heat. Allow the
mixture to cool. 4 Filter the mixture. The filtrate is a solution of copper

sulfate. Pour this into an evaporating basin 5 Heat the evaporating basin
very gently until you see crystals forming at the edge of the solution. Rem
from the heat and leave for a few days to form crystal

Metal carbonates and acids:

Carbonates such as calcium carbonate - are salts. Carbonates can be
formed by the

reaction of a metal with carbonic acid. We can use carbonates to form

other salts by reacting them with an acid.

For example:

sulfuric acid + calcium carbonate → calcium sulfate+ water+ carbon dioxide

hydrochloric acid + calcium carbonate calcium chloride + water + carbon

dioxide

nitric acid + calcium carbonate → calcium nitrate+ water+ carbon dioxide

You may remember about the reactions of acids and carbonates from
Stage 7, where you learnt about limestone. Limestone is composed of
calcium carbonate. It is damaged. when it reacts with acid rain and erodes.

The general equation for these reactions is:

acid + carbonate → salt + water + carbon dioxide

Forming salts by neutralisation:
You will remember that alkalis react with acids and neutralise them. When
an acid is neutralised by an alkali, a salt is produced. For example, when
sodium hydroxide reacts with hydrochloric acid, the salt sodium chloride is
formed. The other product is water.

sodium hydroxide + hydrochloric acid → sodium chloride + water

The general equation for neutralisation reactions is:

acid + alkali → salt + water

How to prepare a salt by

neutralisation:
Place hydrochloric acid in a burette.

2 Measure out 20cm' of sodium hydroxide

in a small flask

3 Add a few drops of Universal Indicator

solution 4 Add the acid from the burette slowly. swirling the flask (moving it
gently round) as you add the acid

5 When the Universal Indicator changes to green you have produced a

neutral

solution. 6 Add a spatula of charcoal powder to the green solution. Mix it

with a glass rod.
The charcoal takes the green colour of the Universal Indicator out of the
solution. 7 Filter the mixture.

8 Place the filtrate into an evaporating dish and heat gently. Safety: Take
care as the solution may spit

and burn you.

9 Stop heating when you see some crystals

around the edge of the solution.

10 Leave the evaporating basin for a few days. The water will evaporate
slowly, leaving crystals of the salt.

Alkalis and bases:

When a metal oxide dissolves in water, it forms an alkaline solution. Metal
oxides are called bases. Soluble metal bases form alkalis when they
dissolve in water.

For example:

sodium oxide + water → sodium hydroxide

Sodium oxide is a base. The sodium hydroxide is an alkali.

Some metal oxides are not soluble in water, for example iron oxide and
copper oxide. So they do not form alkalis. But they can still react with acids
to form salts.

copper oxide + sulfuric acid copper sulfate + water

What is an indicator and how its
used:
Whenever we visit a laboratory, we can find a number of chemicals kept
there. These all chemicals may appear similar to us but they are not. Some
of these may be acids, bases or salts. We can easily identify these
chemicals with the help of the labels on the bottles. But what if you want to
know whether a chemical is an acid or base without its label. Have you
ever wondered how scientists identify the acids or bases in a lab or classify
the product of a chemical reaction as an acid or a base? This is where
indicators are really helpful to us.

Types of indicators:
Indicators are mainly of two types:

Natural Indicators: The indicators that occur naturally in the environment

are called natural indicators. e.g. Litmus, Turmeric, etc.
Artificial Indicators: Those indicators that are obtained through some
chemical reaction but not naturally or are prepared artificially in the
laboratory are artificial indicators. e.g. Phenolphthalein, Methyl orange, etc.
Olfactory Indicators: These are those indicators that do not show a color
change but a change in smell when added to acid or a base. Thus olfactory
indicators are those indicators whose smell changes depending upon the
nature of medium, whether it is acidic or basic.

Natural indicators:
Natural Indicator is a sort of indicator that may be found in nature and can
be used to detect whether a material is acidic or basic. Red cabbage,
turmeric, grape juice, turnip peel, curry powder, cherries, beetroots, onion,
tomato, and other natural indications are examples.
Hydrangeas, for example, can tell you if the soil is acidic or basic. If the soil
is acidic, the blooms turn blue, purple if the soil is neutral, and pink if the
soil is basic. The colour intensity is determined by the quantity of acid or
base in the soil. Deep blue flowers bloom in extremely acidic soil, whereas
deep pink blooms bloom in strongly basic soil.

Litmus:
Litmus is obtained from lichens and is a mixture of water-soluble dyes that
are obtained from the lichens. Litmus is generally made into a soluble dye
and then absorbed onto a paper that is then called litmus paper. The
natural colour of litmus is purple. Litmus can be used to test if a compound
is an acid or a base. A red litmus paper turns blue in a basic solution and
does not show any colour change in acidic solutions. A blue litmus paper
turns red in an acidic solution and shows no colour change in a basic
solution. Neutral litmus turns red and blue in acidic and basic solutions
respectively.
Turmeric:
Turmeric is a naturally occurring indicator and is commonly known as Haldi.
It is bright yellow in colour. Turmeric paste can be used to test for acids or
bases. In an acidic medium, turmeric is yellow in colour and does not show
any colour change while in a basic solution its colour turns red.

Red Cabbage Indicator:

Red cabbage is commonly used as a vegetable but its extract can also be
used as an indicator. Red cabbage is a natural indicator. Red cabbage
contains a pigment anthocyanin that is responsible for the colour change of
red cabbage in an acid or base. Red cabbage extract is used as an
indicator. Red cabbage has a deep purple colour naturally. The red
cabbage extract turns red in an acidic medium with a pH < 7 and bluish-
green in an alkaline or basic medium with a pH > 7.

Artificial indicators:
Synthetic indicators, often known as artificial indicators, are acid-base
indicators that are made from artificial chemicals.
Methyl Orange:
Methyl Orange is also an indicator and shows colour change in acids and
bases. It is orange in colour originally. Methyl orange can be only used in
the case of mineral acids and strong bases. It cannot identify weak acids or
weak bases. In an acidic medium, methyl orange turns red, while in a basic
medium, it turns yellow. The structure of methyl orange is as shown below:

Phenolphthalein:
Phenolphthalein is a water-soluble dye and is dark purple in color. It is used
in form of a solution to test for acid and base. In an acidic medium, it turn
colorless while in a basic medium it turns light pink in color. It is mostly
used in acid-base titrations. The color of phenolphthalein is shown below in
acidic and basic medium:

What are the Universal

Indicators?
The common indicators may or may not show colour change over a wide
range of pH but only for a small range. This makes it difficult to identify the
acids or bases. This problem is solved by universal indicators. Multiple
indicators are mixed to form universal indicator which change their colour
over a wide range of pH values.
The atacama rocks in Chile:
Blue-green colours in these rocks in the Atacama Desert in Chile tell you
that they contain copper salts. This bright blue-green mineral in the rock is
called malachite. It is made from copper carbonate.

Summary:
● Salts are compounds that have hundreds of different usues in
everyday life
● Salts are formed when hydrogen in an acid is replaced by a metal or
ammonium.
● Salts can be prepared by reacting metals with acids
● To obtain a dry sample of the salt,you must allow the water to
evaporate from the solution of salt.
● Unreactive metals will not react with acida,so you cannot make their
salts in this way
● Salts can be formed by the reaction of acid on a carbonatw.
● Acid+carbonate = salt+water+carbon dioxide
● Salts are formed when an acid is neutralised by an alkali.

Examples of salts:
There are many different kinds of salts and some of their examples i have
given but there are other examples also e.g:
Aluminium sulfate:it is added to dyes to help them stick to fibres
Copper sulfate:it is used to stop fungi growing on soya seeds when they
are planted.
Sodium chloride:when sodium hydroxide reacts with hydrochloric
acid,sodium chloride is formed and other product is water.
Sodium chloride and other salts can be made in different ways
It is used as a flavouring in foods.

Scientists are working hard and trying to create new acids and salts
everyday for humans so they can develop and use different salts and acids
in many ways.

Reactions of metals in air:

there are many types of metals and they have different atom sizes and
hardness
For example sodium is much softer than iron but sodium is much more
reactive than iron
Group 1 metals react very vigorously with air,they are so reactive that they
can explode when they react with oxygen in air.
Most of them react with oxygen when they are heated or burned

Reactions of metals in water:

Many metals react with water to form bases,the more the reactive metal is
the more it will react with water
Lithium reacts with water to produce lithium hydroxide and hydrogen
Sodium is more reactive than lithium in water
Potassium is the most reactive amongest the 3 metals so muxh heat is
generated that the hydrogen gas produced catches fire.

Reaction of metals in an acid:

Metals can react with acids to form a salt, most od these metals arent very
hard they are more reactive and soft
For example sodium is a salt and it can reat with hydrochloric acid to form
sodium chloride
Another example is potassium,when potassium reacts with nitric acid to
make potassium nitrate.

How to check if a reaction has produced carbon

dioxide or not:
Carbon dioxide is usually produced by a carbonic reaction when
carbonates react with acids a salt is formed
We can check if carbon dioxide is produced or not by taking a burning
match stick near the gas and if the match stick will go off it means that the
gas is carbon dioxide.

Salts are very important to all people it can help us to make food, can be
used as a fertilizer,can be used as a medicane for plants and humans
both,can be used in sports,can be used to make dyes stick to fibres
And can be used to make arts and crafts as well.

The End
Project by irtazakuragi
Teacher: Teacher Uzma