Chemical Suffixes

[Brandon Li]

What do different chemical suffixes refer to in terms of the compound's formula?

For example, a practice problem asked to find the empirical formula for Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate (Epsom Salt). What do suffixes mean? Such as "-ide", "-ate", "-ite", etc.

[205995790]

The -ite ending indicates a low oxidation state.
The -ate ending indicates a high oxidation state.
The -ide ending indicates an anion or a negatively charged ion or non-metals.
Hope this helps!

[nyireess]

-ide is used for non-metal compounds generally. For example, Chlorine forms a chloride ion, so NaCl is Sodium Chloride. -ate and -ite are commonly used for polyatomic ions of Oxygen. -ate is used for the ion that has the largest number of Oxygen atoms

-ide is generally used for nonmetals (ex. sodium chlorIDE)
-ate and -ite generally refer to polyatomic oxygen ions and depend on oxidation state. -ate is used for the ion with the largest number of oxygen atoms. for example, nitrate (NO3) vs nitrite (NO2)