Talk:Bisulfide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemistry, which collaborates on Chemistry and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project. | ||
|
Article Grading: The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.. |
|||
[edit] "Bisulfide" name question
Hydrosulfide makes sense as a name--like hydroxide. But why is it also called "bisulfide"? What is the "bi" for? Murftown (talk) 18:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
- For the same reason as bicarbonate, whatever that is. ;-) My guess is that it is because you need two equivalents of the bicarbonate to neutralize the same amount of acid that you would neutralize with one equivalent of carbonate. --Itub (talk) 18:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- Look at this old book: [1]. The idea is that the bicarbonate "contains two equivalents of [carbonic] acid". If that doesn't seem to make sense, it's probably because in the first half of the 19th century there were problems with the atomic weights, resulting in formulas such as HO for water and NaO for sodium oxide. Therefore it was thought that the carbonate had one carbonic acid and one sodium, while the bicarbonate had one sodium and two "carbonates". Even in with modern atomic weights, 1 equivalent CO32- is 0.5 mol, because the ion is divalent, so the ratio of equivalents of "carbonate" to Na+ is still 1:1 for the carbonate and 2:1 for the bicarbonate. --Itub (talk) 18:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
