What is a Chemical formula?
A Chemical formula is a symbolic representation of a compound along with its composition.
For example, the chemical formula of water 𝐻2𝑂 represents that two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen are present in one molecule of water.
Chemical formula of water
There are three important rules for writing chemical formulae. Let us look at the first rule.
Writing chemical formulae – Rule 1
In a compound formed by the combination of a metal and a non-metal, the metal component is mentioned first and the non-metal component later.
For example, the chemical formula for sodium chloride is NaCl.
Since sodium is a metal and chlorine a non-metal, Na is mentioned first and then Cl.
We will look at the remaining two rules in our next segments.