Question

A formulation scientist is creating a formula for a new product that requires the following compounds: barium chloride, silicon oxide, and calcium carbonate. Are these chemicals named properly? If not, why?

Answer 1

Answer:

Yes. These chemicals named barium chloride and calcium carbonate have been named properly. But silicon oxide has not been named correctly, an oxide of silicon is named as silicon dioxide not silicon oxide.

Explanation:

In chemistry while naming chemicals there are certain rules and naming the chemicals as per these rules is known as chemical nomenclature. The IUPAC's rule for chemical nomenclature of inorganic compounds can be read in a book named as red book.

By sign convention, a cation is named first followed by an anion. For example, in barium chloride (BaCl₂), barium which is represented by symbol Ba²⁺ is a cation and therefore written before chloride (Cl⁻) which is an anion. Similarly calcium carbonate is represented as CaCO₃.

As per the valency of silicon, it forms a dioxide with oxygen atom and it is represented as SiO₂.