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Is NaCl an element or a compound? Explain.
Sodium chloride (NaCl), also known as common table salt, is a compound and not an element.
It is an ionic compound made up of the sodium cation (Na+) and the chloride anion (Cl-) on a one-to-one ratio, held together by the electrostatic force of attraction of the positively charged sodium ion and the negatively charged chloride ion.
Sodium (Na)is a metal with atomic number 11
Number of valence electrons: 1
Chlorine is a non-metal with atomic number: 17
Number of valence electrons: 7
As Sodium has one electron in its valence shell and needs to remove it to attain noble gas configuration. So, it gets ionizes and gives one electron (Na) to form a compound. Chlorine needs 1 electron to attain noble gas configuration so it takes the electron from sodium ion and becomes chloride anion. Therefore, in Sodium Chloride, Na gives 1 electron to Cl and becomes Na+, as Cl accepts an electron, it becomes Cl-. These two ions combine to give the compound NaCl.