how can you tell wheter a compound is an acid,base,or salt?
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how can you tell wheter a compound is an acid,base,or salt?
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Identifying Acids, Bases, and Salts.
You can't get anywhere in an acid/base problems if you can't identify what any of the compounds are. Which are weak acids, which are basic salts, etc...
Here some helpful guidelines to work through in identifying compounds. Rather than simply memorize them, use these ideas to help you think through the identification process.
First, you need to memorize the strong acids and bases. This is key. It will not only allow you to identify the strong acids and bases, but it will help you figure out which ions are simply spectator ions.
Second, you should realize that history has played a role in naming compounds. Therefore there are some compounds we typically think of as acids and some compounds we think of bases. However, every acid has a conjugate base and every base a conjugate acid. So we really have two forms of each compound: one protonated (the acid) and one deprontonated (the base).