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Obviously, I've heard of table salt (NaCl), but I've also heard of others substances being called salts. What do they mean by something being a salt?

There's the regular Clorox bleach that we use with whites, but then there is non-chlorine bleach. What is a bleach?

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[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 35 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Salt is any ionic compound. Usually only compounds that are solid at room temperature, but most ionic compounds already are.

Bleach is anything that chemically destroys pigments to make things whiter. Normal bleach is sodium hypochlorite. Non-chlorine bleach could be anything.

[–] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's also worth noting that calling any ionic compound a salt is a little archaic as it's simply confusing for no good reason. I teach chemistry at a college and while I make sure my students have heard this terminology, we mostly stick to calling them "ionic compounds" to avoid confusion