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III. Naming acids
A. If the acid does not contain an
oxygen, the name of the acid is hydro + (anion root) + ic
acid.
B. If the acid contains an oxygen, determine
the name of the polyatomic anion. If the anion ends in
"-ite" then the ending "-ous" is used. If
the anion ends in "-ate" then the ending
"-ic" used. Of course, there are exceptions...if
the name of the acid sounds weird using the anion name,
then the element name is used instead.
e.g. H2SO4 is based on
sulfate.
If you cross out the "-ate" and add
"-ic" and you would have sulfic acid....
Sulfic acid sounds bad, so use sulfur as the
root instead. However, the suffix is still
determined using the name of the polyatomic anion.
Thus, H2SO4 is sulfuric
acid
e.g. H3PO4 is based on
phosphate
If you cross out "-ate" and add
"-ic" and you would have posphic acid.
Phosphic acid sounds bad so use phosphorous
instead....phosphoric acid
Unfortunately, the only way to remember this is to
remember which acids are named differently.
Back to
Nomenclature
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