In: Chemistry
Three salts - AgNO3, NH4Cl and Na3PO4 - are each dissolved in a small amount of water (about 1 mL). There are no other chemicals available besides these three solutions. How many of the salts can be identified with certainty? How?
We can identify all the three salts with certainty.
We need to treat each solution with the other two solutions.
When AgNO3 solution is treated with NH4Cl solution it will give white precipitate of AgCl, and when AgNO3 solution is treated with Na3PO4 solution it will give a yellow precipitate of Ag3PO4.
The equation of reactions are
AgNO3 (aq) + NH4Cl (aq) AgCl (s) + NH4NO3 (aq) (white ppt)
AgNO3 (aq) + Na3PO4 (aq) Ag3PO4 (s) + NaNO3 (aq) (yellow ppt)
The solution which gives precipitate with both the solutions will be labelled as AgNO3 .
The solution which gave a white precipitate with AgNO3 will be labelled as NH4Cl .
The solution which gave a yellow precipitate with AgNO3 will be labelled as Na3PO4