Is table salt a pure substance?
Sooner or later you will come across the term pure substance in chemistry lessons. This subject area can be explained particularly well using the example of table salt.
The basic substance - general information
- In general, a substance that consists of one chemical element or just one chemical compound is referred to as a pure substance. If a substance consists of several chemical substances or even several chemical compounds, this is referred to as a mixture.
- Another interesting fact is that an ideal pure substance cannot be realized in practice. This is because there is always a minimal level of contamination present.
- For this reason, the chemical trade always indicates the respective degree of contamination. The highest degree of purity is "pro analysi", which means something like "pure".
- In order to even come close to the highest degree of purity, a substance must have various properties. These include the density, the melting point, the boiling point, the thermal conductivity, the solubility in a binder as well as the electrical conductivity and the refractive index.
Is table salt pure? - Characteristics
To determine whether table salt is pure, you need to consider several things.
Melting temperature of table salt - explanation of the high value
The melting temperature of table salt is an impressive 800 degrees Celsius. Because …
- Although table salt is a composition of two different types of atoms (sodium and chlorine), it is a pure substance. This is because table salt has only one molecular compound. Therefore this belongs to the pure chemical compounds.
- Other pure chemical compounds are, for example, carbon dioxide and distilled water.
- In contrast to other crystals, table salt is also not birefringent. For this reason, table salt is the only crystal that is one of the pure substances.
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