READ: Naming Chemical Compounds

READ: Naming Chemical Compounds

Whether you realize it or not, you are familiar with the names of many chemical compounds. Recall that a compound is two or more elements that have been chemically combined. Water is a chemical compound and you probably know that its chemical formula is H₂O. That formula tells you that water is composed of the elements hydrogen and oxygen. However, the physical and chemical properties of liquid water are nothing like the properties of hydrogen and oxygen, which are both gases. Water is an example of a common name that is given to a compound because it is something that everybody is accustomed to seeing and using every day. Yet there are millions of known chemical compounds out there. To give each and every one of them a common name would be a hopeless and confusing task. The picture to the left is a famous painting of French chemist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) and his wife. Lavoisier is generally considered to be the founder of modern chemistry. Among his many accomplishments was the recognition that a systematic method was needed for naming the ever-increasing number of chemical compounds that were being created. Such a naming system is called nomenclature. This lesson will teach you the rules of nomenclature and allow you to name and write formulas for many simple chemical compounds.

Did you know these chemical names and formulas of these common name substances you are probably familiar with?   

It is easy to describe elements and mixtures. We simply use the names that we find on the periodic table for elements and we use words to describe mixtures. But how exactly are compounds named? The name of a compound is a combination of the names of the elements that make it up with some slight changes. There are specific rules for naming and writing formulas for both ionic and covalent compounds.

We have these rules in place so that scientists all around the world can easily communicate with one another. Musicians of every culture recognize the music embodied in a series of notes on a staff as seen in the picture above. This passage from a Bach cello suite could be played by any trained musician from any country, because there is agreement as to what the symbols on the page mean. In the same way, molecules are represented using symbols that all chemists agree upon.

Georgia Virtual, Bonding and Chemical Reactions, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

After you have completed this part of the lesson, you can check the associated box on the main course page to mark it as complete