Salts and ionic compounds

Mr_Bojingles

Does a salt always have an ionic bond in it regardless of whether it's constituents are covalently bonded or not? When an acid reacts with a base does it always create a salt by means of ionic bonding? I hear all salts are soluble in water but bases are not. What about acids. Are acids soluble in polar or non polar solvents? Also do salts always ionize when dissolved in water?

LtStorm

Salts are ionic compounds by definition. If it has a complex anion or cation that happens to be covalent, the actual salt itself is still formed by an ionic bond. And yes, the product of an acid-base neutralization reaction is a salt--also by definition. All acids and bases are soluble to some degree in water--otherwise they wouldn't be acids and bases. Salts can be insoluble in water, and this varies widely from stuff like sodium chloride that practically has no limit on its solubility to barium sulfate that dissolves only a very tiny amount.

Water is a polar solvent, so, yes, acids are usually soluble in those. I can't remember how the usually dissolve in non-polar solvents, as pretty much all the rules of solubility I was taught were based on water as the solvent. And yes, salts generally ionize in water--the effect of them dissolving.

lightarrow

What do you mean with "it's constituents"? If the bonds inside a compound are covalent, then the compound is not ionic!
It depends on how you define the word "base"; as is usually defined, yes.That's wrong, there are many insoluble salts.Wrong, there are many soluble and many insoluble bases.They can be soluble as well as insoluble, for both polar and non polar solvents.Almost always.