[BloodCrisis]

Hello, This is my first post to this forum, so don´t take so hard on me. I have a definition problem, mainly.
The activity was the following.
"Of these chemical species in equilibrium, which ones are molecular compounds and which ones are ionic compounds"
and the species were [Na⁺] [H₂CO₃] [HCO₃^-1] [CO₃^-2] [OH-] [H+]

Any help would be great!

[Borek]

Stupid question IMHO. The simplest approach - these charged must be ionic.

[BloodCrisis]

Haha  , yeah that's what I said, but the teacher started talking nosense about all being molecular...  she is really a crazy one... thanks!

PD: I'm still learning english, that's the cause of the cheap writing... sorry 

[Borek]

Especially Na⁺ is a molecule.

[saden99]

The question really isn't confusing at all, but if your teacher is saying they are all molecular then you should ask exactly why.


Some explanations in analytical chemistry can sound a bit nutty....


I can see the others being molecular, but Na⁺ is a metal so it would inevitably be ionic wouldn't it? Hmmm...

[BloodCrisis]

Of course,  I think that Na⁺ and H⁺ are ions (they´re not molecular at all)

The ionization of the acid is the problem, they´re all polytomic ions and also molecules - it depends in how you take the definition of molecule-... in some cases it says that a molecule must be a neutral charged one.

So, I answered the problem (it was a exam) saying that H₂CO₃ was the only molecular compound, and the rest were ions.

Seriously, it sounds like an easy question, but it´s really confusing.  . Probably it was a damn tricky one...

[Borek]

Probably it was a damn tricky one...

By my book it is not tricky, just ambiguous.

[BloodCrisis]

Probably it was a damn tricky one...

By my book it is not tricky, just ambiguous.

Ambiguous it´s enough tricky for me ...

So... we should consider [HCO3-1] [CO3-2] as ionic or molecular species??