Question

Write the formula for the following compound. Iron (III) sulphate.

Answer 1

Hint Iron sulphate is also known by the name ferric sulfate which is an inorganic salt which is yellow in colour and soluble in water. It is found in a wide variety of minerals but mainly found in marcasite and pyrite.

Complete Step by step solution:
Iron (III) sulfate is generally made up of anion and cation where anion is those ions which have a negative charge on them and cations are those which are positively charged in nature and in iron sulfate we have a transition metal iron i.e. cation carries a positive charge and polyatomic ion sulfate acts an anion as it carries a negative charge. Hence to write the formula for the compound we have to follow some basic rules which are as follows:
1. Firstly write the chemical symbol for iron which is Fe.
2. Now we have to find out the charge for the sulfate ion which we can check from common ion table.
3. Here Iron (III) represents that it contains +3 charge and sulfate contains -2 charge. Hence to maintain the neutrality i.e. an equal number of cation and anion in a compound we need two iron atoms which give us +6 charge on iron and 3 sulfate ions which give -6 charge and the overall charge will be zero.

Hence from the above discussion we can conclude that the formula for iron (III) sulfate can be written as: $F{e}_2{(S{O}_4)}_3$

Note: Iron sulfate has many applications like it is used in the water treatment process to eliminate the sulfur odour from the water, used as an oxidizing and solid separating agent and iron sulfate can also be used in medicines.