How do we use the flame test to identify certain elements?

1 Answer
Dec 17, 2016

You have not quoted a single element........

Explanation:

All of these species are ionic solids containing at least 2 elements.

In the flame lab test, you are reducing the metal ions back to metal atoms, and sometimes the metal atom is oxidized to an ion, which oxidation gives characteristic colours in the visible.

I suggest you look up the appropriate chapter of your text, which can explain it much better than I can. In this experiment you interrogate the spectra of #"atoms"# NOT #"ions"#.