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Which of these is a compound?

A) Na
B) Cl
C) NaCl
D) C

1 Answer

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Final answer:

NaCl, or sodium chloride, is the compound in the provided list, as it consists of sodium and chlorine elements in a 1:1 ratio, forming an ionic compound.

Step-by-step explanation:

The compound in the list provided is C) NaCl, which stands for sodium chloride. Sodium chloride is an ionic compound consisting of sodium cations (Na+) and chloride anions (Cl−), which bond together in a fixed 1:1 ratio to form the crystalline solid that is commonly known as table salt. In contrast, Na (sodium), Cl (chlorine), and C (carbon) are all elements, not compounds.

In chemistry, an ionic compound is a chemical compound composed of ions held together by electrostatic forces termed ionic bonding. The compound is neutral overall, but consists of positively charged ions called cations and negatively charged ions called anions. These can be simple ions such as the sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl−) in sodium chloride, or polyatomic species such as the ammonium (NH+4) and carbonate (CO2−3) ions in ammonium carbonate.

Individual ions within an ionic compound usually have multiple nearest neighbours, so are not considered to be part of molecules, but instead part of a continuous three-dimensional network. Ionic compounds usually form crystalline structures when solid.

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