Question

Why does potassium chloride and sodium nitrate not react? If we assumed the reaction had occured, and were unable to detect it, what errors could have contributed to the misunderstanding of the results?

Answer 1

These two alkali metal salts, potassium chloride and sodium nitrate do not react with each other, even if you try to fuse a solid mixture of the two.

When aqueous solutions of the two are mixed, as there is no possibility of formation of an insoluble salt, so won’t be any double decomposition.
So, you will get only a homogeneous mixture of the two salts, containing all the Na⁺, Cl^-, K⁺ and NO₃^- ions in water.

For example, you make solutions of each of the metal salts and mix them. Now you will have a solution containing sodium (Na⁺), potassium (K⁺), chloride (Cl^-), and nitrate ions (NO₃^-). Sodium chloride (NaCl), potassium nitrate (KNO₃), potassium chloride (KCl) and sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) are all water soluble, so there will be no precipitate formation. Everything will just float around ignoring each other. Removing the water by heating the solution and you will get a mixture of sodium chloride, sodium nitrate, potassium chloride and potassium nitrate in 1:1:1:1 proportion.