Question

a. Assume you are given a water, H₂O, solution and told that it contains either hydrochloric acid, HCl or sodium chloride, NaCl. Describe how you could determine which of these is present.

b. Assume that you are given a H₂O solution that contains either sodium hydroxide, NaOH or sodium chloride, NaCl. Describe how you could determine which is in solution.

Answer 1

a) HCl is an acid but NaCl is just a salt. So, we will use indicator. We will use blue litmus paper as indicator.

Take a blue litmus paper and dip it into a solution. If a colour of blue litmus paper does not change , then it means solution contain NaCl.

But if a colour of blue litmus paper change from blue to red. Then it means solution contain HCl.

b) NaOH is base but again NaCl is just a salt. Again we will use indicator. But this time indicator is red litmus paper.

NaCl do not give any change in colour of red litmus paper.

But if a colour change from red to blue , then means there is NaOH in a solution.

I hope you understand everything well.