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Ammonium Salts

One of the most characteristic properties of ammonia is its power of combining directly with acids to form salts; thus with hydrochloric acid it forms ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac); with nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, etc. It is to be noted that H. B. Baker (Journal of Chem. Soc., 1894, lxv. p. 612) has shown that perfectly dry ammonia will not combine with perfectly dry hydrochloric acid, moisture being necessary to bring about the reaction.

The salts produced by the action of ammonia on acids are known as the ammonium salts and all contain the compound radical ammonium (NH4+). Numerous attempts have been made to isolate this radical, but so far none have been successful. By the addition of sodium amalgam to a concentrated solution of ammonium chloride, the so-called ammonium amalgam is obtained as a spongy mass which floats on the surface of the liquid; it decomposes readily at ordinary temperatures into ammonia and hydrogen; it does not reduce silver and gold salts, a behaviour which distinguishes it from the amalgams of the alkali metals, and for this reason it is regarded by some chemists as being merely mercury inflated by gaseous ammonia and hydrogen. M. le Blanc has shown, however, that the effect of ammonium amalgam on the magnitude of polarization of a battery is comparable with that of the amalgams of the alkali metals.

Ammonium Bromide
Ammonium Chloride
Ammonium Chlorate
Ammonium Carbonates
Ammonium Fluoride
Ammonium Bicarbonate
Ammonium Iodide
Ammonium Sodium Hydrogen Phosphate
Ammonium Nitrite
Ammonium Nitrate
Ammonium Phosphates
Ammonium Sulfide
Ammonium Persulfate
Ammonium Sulfate


Last Update: 2004-12-22