Identifying Salts

[Juliette]

Hello,

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm kind of confused on how to identify when a salt is neutral. How do you know?

[Nina Chessa 2A]

If a salt is formed from a strong acid and a strong base, then its solution will be neutral (ph=7). This is because no hydrolysis (reaction with water) will take place, and thus there will be no ions to make the solution acidic or basic.

[405735471]

I'm still confused about finding the pH of salt solutions. What are you meant to do after you separate the salt into the cation and the anion?

[205750231]

Once you separate the salt into the cation and the anion, you must then identify whether the cation belongs to a strong or weak base. Then identify if the anion belongs to a strong or weak acid. The solution will be more acidic if you find that the cation belongs to a weak base. The solution will be more basic if the anion is found to belong to a weak acid.

[Ross Mantsurov 1L]

For a neutral salt, like NaCl, it'll form a strong base and strong acid in water (NaOH, HCl) at equal concentrations, therefore giving an equal molarity of H+ ions and OH- ions, therefore pOH = pH which equals a neutral [pH] of 1x10^-7.