Does sodium chloride undergo chemical reaction with water?

1 Answer
Oct 2, 2015

Yep. While sodium chloride does not hydrolyze water, it does undergo ionization.

Explanation:

When NaCl is dissolved in water, ionization occurs to form aquated #Na^+#, and #Cl^-# ions.

We could represent the reaction as follows:

#NaCl(s) stackrel(H_2O)rarr Na^(+)(aq) + Cl^(-)(aq)#.

#Na^(+)(aq)# represents the aquated sodium ion, which we could formulate as #[Na(OH_2)_6]^+#, that is 1 sodium ion surrounded by, or aquated by 6 water molecules. No acid/base chemistry occurs.