To name a compound you must first decide whether the substance is an ionic or molecular compound. Ionic compounds are easily recognized since they usually contain both metallic and non-metallic elements. The most common exception to this rule are ionic compounds containing the ammonium ion, NH4+, such as (NH4)2CO3 or NH4Br which contain no metal ions. Molecular compounds typically contain only non-metallic atoms (and metalloids).

Conventions for naming ionic compounds are given in your Text To successfully follow the rules, however, you must be first learn the names of common ions . Names of ionic compounds do not give the number of each type of ion in the formula: the chemist is supposed to be able to figure that out from his/her knowledge of ion charges and the requirement that salts be neutral (and thus have a sum of zero for the ion charges in the formula).

Binary compounds of the non-metals are named following the guidelines given in your Text. Note that when naming these molecular compounds, the number of atoms of a given type is commonly indicated with a prefix (di-, tri-, tetra, etc.).

______________________________________________________________________________

Exercises

1. Complete the following chart of corresponding ion names and formulas.