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How are salts of carboxylic acids named?
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carboxylic acid
Alcohols may be oxidized to give aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids. The oxidation of organic compounds generally increases the number of bonds from carbon to oxygen, and it may decrease the number of bonds to hydrogen.
Salts of carboxylic acids are named using the same convention as inorganic compounds, where the cation is identified first, followed by the anion.1
To determine the name of the anion, the suffix of the parent acid is modified:
* If using the IUPAC name, the ending -oic acid is changed to -ate.1
* If using the common name, the ending -ic acid is changed to -ate.1
For example, the salt formed from sodium and acetic acid is named sodium acetate, while the salt formed from potassium and butanoic acid (or butyric acid) is named potassium butanoate (or potassium butyrate).1