Chemical Formula and Names Worksheet
Chemical Formula and Names Worksheet
Chemical Formula and Names Worksheet
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Metal Non-Metal Compounds
If the name ends with an -ide, there will be usually only two elements n the
compound, e.g. sodium chloride ( NaCl ). The metal part is named first and the
non-metal part second. The non-metals name is changed to -ide to show that it
is now joined in a compound. So sodium chloride is made up of a sodium atom
and a chlorine atom joined together by a chemical bond. The only exception to
this rule is when the second word is hydroxide (OH-1 ), when there will be three
elements.
Non-Metal Compounds
Sometimes two non-metal elements bond together to form different
compounds like CO and CO2. They both can’t be carbon oxide so we need to
give them different names. We do this by giving them Greek prefixes:
Mono one Di two
Tri three Tetra four
Name Formula
Carbon dioxide
CO
Nitrogen Oxide
N02
carbon tetrachloride
S03
sulfur dioxide
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-ite and -ate
If the name ends in -ite or -ate there will be more than two elements in the
compound and one of them will be oxygen.
e.g. Copper sulfate, (CuSO4) Contains copper, sulfur and oxygen ( the -ate tells
you)
The word endings -ate and -ite don’t mean exactly the same thing. For example
sodium sulfate and sodium sulfite are different chemicals. The one with the
most oxygen in it’s formula ends with -ate and the one with less oxygen ends in
-ite.
e.g. NaNO3 is sodium sulfate and NaNO2 is sodium sulfite
Complete this table:
NAME FORMULA
K2S
lead (II) nitrate
CaC2
Zinc (II) hydroxide
KMn03
calcium carbonate
K2N
sodium sulfite
KN02
Silver (I) nitrite
NaOH
calcium sulfide
MgS04
magnesium sulfate
Na2S03
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Bi- compounds
Sometimes the -ite and -ate also include the word hydrogen, for example
sodium hydrogen sulfate. This just means that as well as all the stuff you just
worked out before, the compound also contains hydrogen. (NaHSO4). Some
people still use an older way of naming these which is to use the word bi- to
instead of the word hydrogen. e.g.NaHCO3 could be sodium hydrogen carbonate
or sodium bi-carbonate
Name Formula
potassium hydrogen carbonate
NaHS04
calcium bi-carbonate
Metals
Some metals can form more than one compound with another element. e.g.
Iron can form two different compounds with chlorine: FeCl2 and FeCl3.
The modern way to tell them apart is to use a Roman numeral after the metals
name to show what charge the metal ion has, e.g. FeCl2 is iron (II) chloride and
FeCl3 is iron (III) chloride.
There is another and older way which is still used by some people and that is to
use the latin name for the element and putting -ic after the the higher charge
and -ous after the lower charge.
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