Talk:Sodium acetate

Chemical Formula

I am far from a chemistry expert (this is just my first year teaching the subject in high school, so I guess I'm still learning), but wouldn't the Na come first in the chemical formula? My class learned that the positive ion comes first - is that wrong? Thanks, Applejuicefool 21:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I am far from an expert as well, but I believe that the sodium would come first if we are treating acetate as simply a complex anion, C₂H₃O₂^-. However, the negative charge resides on the singly-bond oxygen and this is best represented as a methyl, CH₃, then a doubly-bond oxygen, O, and finally, the O^-: thus CH₃OONa, where the cationic sodium is next to the anionic O. This difference is really thanks to organic and inorganic trends and in chemistry I believe. Because binomial nomenclature predominates at the early high school level and "methyl" and "carboxyl" are meaningless, the form NaC₂H₃O₂ is preferred. Does this make sense? Srnec 19:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I changed the formulas in this article to CH₃COONa for consistency. Redhookesb (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Being an organic chemist, perhaps I'm placed best to answer this question. When writing structural formulas, the counter ion is usually placed at the end. In this case, one should write CH₃COONa or CH₃CO₂Na. Bruto formulas are essentially useless in applied chemistry and should not be used. However, when writing condensed formulas, the position of the counter ion can change as to reflect the notation of inorganic salts: most people write NaOAc and not AcONa. Keep in mind that there are no formal rules for this (as far as I'm aware) and that people will write just what they prefer. Sorry if it makes your head spin. ;) Carbon warrior 12:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Solubility

The solubility on this page contradicts the numbers at solubility table. Any idea on which one's correct? Also, the solubility on this article is given as 76 g/100 ml at 0 C, which makes it a surprisingly high number (and an unusual temperature). Does anyone confident in their chemistry know the answer? Zashaw 20:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Molecular Formula

Shouldn't the molecular formula be changed from CH₃CO₂Na to C₂H₃O₂Na ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.172.200.14 (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Sorry, for the 3-year late response, but here's my thoughts. Mind you, I'm a chem-n00b too. I believe the reason we name it CH₃CO₂Na is that that more closely resembles the actual chemical structure of the compound (i.e., the CH₃CO₂ part - we can assume the Na dissociates at least some of the time). To put it another way, we could write the chemical formula for an entire strand of DNA as C_{really large number}H_{really large number}N_{really large number}O_{really large number}P_{really large number}, but this doesn't tell us anything about the structure of DNA. Hope this helps (and hope I'm right)!69.249.223.63 (talk) 02:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, you're right. The molecular formula is just the numeric totals: I'm thinking of the structural formula. 69.249.223.63 (talk) 02:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Salt and Vinegar Chips

Isn't sodium acetate what gives salt and vinegar chips their flavour? It's probably the most well known use, but isn't here at all. Damanmundine1 12:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sodium Di-Acetate is used in Salt and Vinegar chips. It is Sodium Acetate + Acetic Acid.24.104.77.206 (talk) 14:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

latent heat of fusion

I tried googling the latent heat of fusion of this stuff, to figure out how much energy those handwarmer thingies hold. I found the figure 264-289 kJ/kg in a book that I put into the article. But then I found the NIST webbook which seems to give a figure roughly 2x lower [1] if I'm reading it correctly (probably not) based on the stated 20.5 kJ/mole enthalpy and .136 kg/mole molecular weight (20.5/.136=148.9 appx). Could a knowledgeable editor please check this--thanks.

The latent heat of fusion depends on how much water is mixed with the sodium acetate.

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

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Diacetate

I'm pretty sure sodium diacetate that is used as a vinegar flavor is different and should not redirect to this. Sodium acetate is a neutral salt. Sodium diacetate ionizes on hydration to form one acetic acid and one sodium acetate. Gigs (talk) 06:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Skeletal Formula

I think the skeletal formula got mixed up with the one of sodium FORMATE. The german article shows the right formula, also if one looks at chemical supplier's websites, on finds the right formula. How to change it?192.33.118.95 (talk) 16:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The chemical structure is correct. In a skeletal formula, all the carbon atoms and the hydrogen atoms attached to them are implicit and not shown. The German Wikipedia prefers partially skeletal formulas where some carbon and hydrogen atoms are explicitly shown and others are not. So the two images look different, but show the same chemical structure. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response and correction and please excuse my premature edit of the skeletal formula, you are right. However, I propose to stick to the same style throughout to avoid confusion. If I understand this right, sodium formate is shown in a partial skeletal representation?192.33.118.95 (talk) 16:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that consistency would be best. The current image at sodium formate is not a skeletal formula (not even partially, all the atoms are shown explicitly). There doesn't appear to be a diagram on Wikipedia or on Wikimedia Commons for a fully skeletal version of sodium formate. An analogous one for formic acid is File:Formic-acid-2D-skeletal.png though. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:10, 2 December 2015 (UTC)