The acid bench: acids with metals, bases and carbonates sim
Four acids, eleven things to add. Watch, warm, test the gas, then name the salt by dragging its ions together. Build the three general equations (and a fourth: base with an ammonium salt), and meet the careful cases: copper, nitric acid, marble in sulfuric acid and the weak ethanoic acid.
Acids, bases and salts: acids with metals, bases and carbonates; naming salts and deducing their formulae · covers the GCSE, IGCSE, O-Level topic
What the sim shows
Acids react in three general ways, and each makes a salt (a fourth reaction, a base with an ammonium salt, is shown too). Acid + metal → salt + hydrogen (a lighted splint gives a squeaky pop). Acid + base → salt + water (no gas; a metal oxide may need warming, and an alkali warms the tube as it neutralises). Acid + carbonate → salt + water + carbon dioxide (the gas turns limewater milky). A base also drives ammonia out of an ammonium salt when warmed: base + ammonium salt → salt + water + ammonia (damp red litmus turns blue). The salt's name comes from both parents: the metal (or ammonium) part from what you added, the other part from the acid: hydrochloric acid makes chlorides, sulfuric acid sulfates, nitric acid nitrates and ethanoic acid ethanoates. Its formula balances the charges, for example Mg²⁺ with two Cl⁻ makes MgCl₂. Careful cases: copper is below hydrogen and does not react with hydrochloric, sulfuric or ethanoic acid; dilute nitric acid is not used with metals here, because it oxidises them and gives off toxic nitrogen oxides instead of hydrogen; calcium carbonate stops fizzing in sulfuric acid, because insoluble calcium sulfate coats it; ethanoic acid is a weak acid and reacts more slowly than hydrochloric acid at the same concentration (1.0 mol/dm³ here). Iron gives pale green iron(II) salts; copper(II) chloride and ethanoate are blue-green, copper(II) sulfate and nitrate blue. Model limits: the temperature changes are illustrative for about 5 cm³ of acid; one textbook observation per reaction.
- Boiling tube with a temperature probe
- Metals, bases and carbonates; four dilute acids
- Gas tests: splint, limewater, red litmus
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