Talk:Sodium salts

Narrow usage?

This article seems to use the phrase "sodium salt" in a strange and narrow way. The lede asserts that the phrase refers to salts of the conjugate anions of organic acids (indeed, the "categorization" section seems to indicate that only salts of carboxylic and sulfonic acids can go in this category), but in my experience the phrase "sodium salt" means simply what it says: a salt whose cation is sodium. The first "sodium salts" that occur to me are the chloride, iodide, and so on, with these organic acid salts a special subcategory. If this article is to retain its current topic and focus, should it perhaps be renamed Organic sodium salts or something along those lines?-Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 11:16, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the remark. I hope it is a bit better now. I consider the lede as correct though: Sodium salts are salts which consist of sodium cations and an inorganic or organic acid. -> inorganic salts are also covered by that definition. They can be formed by the reaction of the acid with sodium hydroxide. e. g. HCl + NaOH -> NaCl + H2O.

I think the categorization is still not perfect though. --Minihaa (talk) 12:21, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

The lede does mention inorganic anions; I think the issue is more one of undue weight in the article's sections and coverage. Anyway, thanks for considering.-Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 13:11, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Sodium amide is not the sodium salt of ammonia.

Sodium amide is made by reacting Na metal with ammonia, not by mixing a sodium cation with NH3 (presumably dissolved in water, which forms ammonium hydroxide). It should not be used as an example of an "Inorganic sodium salt." According to an earlier part of this article, you get a sodium salt by the neutralizing an acid. NH3 (or ammonium hydroxide when in water) is not an acid, and thus it can't be neutralized with NaOH.

Sodium amide decomposes violently when it contacts water, so this reaction is not going to go backwards spontaneously:

NaNH2 + H2O → NH3 + NaOH