Understanding Chemical Nomenclature: Naming Ionic Compounds Explained

Now about naming or nomenclature first you need to understand there are lot of things to remember so many things but if

you understand it is going to make remembering much easier all right nomenclature means naming compounds we

name compounds into scientific method but before going to a scientific method there are certain compounds we just use

common names we almost never use their scientific names those are H2 2 we always call water here steam or ice

depending on the physical state. NH3 is ammonia. We don't call it by other names. And also methane. I just told

this is natural gas. This is common name. We go by this one. And also sodium chloride. We call it table salt. So

these are some common names. We don't worry about any systematic naming of these compound. We know ionic compounds

are formed from metal and nonmetal. When we are naming these ionic compounds, we really want to know what type of metal

is there. That is the important thing. We don't worry about the nonmetal. There are two types of metal ions because we

know that in ionic compounds we have ions cations and annions and when we are naming them metal is important. We

divide them into two different forms of metals. First metal form only one type of ion. What does that mean? If I say

sodium ion, I don't have to say sodium plus one ion. I don't have to say that because when I say sodium ion, everybody

knows that sodium can have only positive one ion. There are no sodium 2 plus ion or 3 plus or whatever. Therefore, I just

can't say sodium ion because sodium forms only one type of ion. Same with magnesium. I can say just simply

magnesium ion. I don't have to say Mg2+ because magnesium forms only one type of ion. Here we have certain ions with one

type of ion. Generally these main groups we can predict especially one and two. You can see this tin and lid they are

main group elements meaning they are not transition metals. We know that these these two are main group and these are

in transition metals. Generally generally transition metals have variable charges that means if I take

let's say ion Fe just like I told sodium ion I cannot say ion ion I have to specify what is the charge of that ion

because ion can have 3+ as well as two plus charges. This metal form more than one type of ion. Those type of metals

when they form compounds they are called type two compounds and compounds like sodium chloride metal from only one type

of ion they are called type one compounds. I just told you most of the time these transition metals have

variable charges transition metal ions unlike these but there are a couple of exceptions for example you can see zinc

is a transient metal silver is a transient metal scandium is a transient metal but they don't show variable

charges their charges are given here scandium always positive3 zinc always positive2 silver always positive1 there

are exceptions we don't worry about those exceptions understand zinc is So they always want like that. These are

exceptions for transient metals. There are some exceptions for main group elements as well. So this tin and lead

are main group elements, right? But still they have variable charges. For example, tin can have 2 plus or 4 plus.

Similarly, lead also can have 2 plus or four plus. They're variable charges. I cannot say simply say tin ion. I should

say the magnitude of the charge. Right? Don't worry even about type one and type two compounds for now. Just understand

these two different types of metals and metal