How do you know if something is aqueous, solid, liquid, gas?

[LiquidPaperz]

Doing 1/2 chem, and we're upto water as a solvent and acids and bases, i know all the theory but when doing questions i dont know when something is aqueous, solid, liquid or a gas.

I know H20 is a liquid, the precipitate is a solid (looking at solubility rules), but with reactions such as ionisation, hydrolysis etc is the reactants always aqueous, could someone tell me what reactions (hydrolysis, neutralisation etc) will always have aqueous in reactants/products and how we can tell when one is the above states?

Thanks heaps

[LiquidPaperz]

like if you look at this, what makes 3 different from 4, in terms of the metal hydrogen carbonate vs metal sulfite?

[jgoudie]

There really is no hard and fast reason for these two to be different, you really need to see it in context and read the question:

if it says a solution (or they give you a concentration, like 1.0M) - it is (aq)
if it say a spatula full it will be (s)

Most of the time you just need to read the question.

like if you look at this, what makes 3 different from 4, in terms of the metal hydrogen carbonate vs metal sulfite?

[vox nihili]

Most things are aqeuous, but yeah, read the question carefully. So if it says "carbon dioxide is evolved" then that suggests that you'll get CO₂(g)

[LiquidPaperz]

what about the product, how do we know if it is a aq or s?

thanks

[jgoudie]

This is all about your solubitily rules.

In general the following things are highly soluble:
Na⁺, K⁺, Li⁺ (i.e. first group ions)
NO₃^-, NH₄⁺, CH₃COO^-

You should know Copper Sulphate is soluble as well.

what about the product, how do we know if it is a aq or s?

thanks

[LiquidPaperz]

Thanks!

does anyone have a good solubility chart they refer to when using solubility rule, which i can try to memorise, something that has everything i need to know and nothing more, the one in my book is all over the place