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Originally Posted by hallenrm
Salt, as I said earlier is made up of sodium ions and chloride ions.
When an ionic compound, such as salt, is dissolved in water, it breaks down into its ions.
Sodium and chloride ions being ions of chemical elements can only be broken down into electrons, protons and neutrons, and to do so requires a hell lot of energy.
This is manifested in the pH of salt solutions in water (also called aqueous solution) to be 7 at room temperature. All aqueos solutions that have a pH 7 are neutral. So if you are getting a pH 9 for your soil, it is basic (alkaline) and this higher pH cannot be due to the presence of salt alone.
To bring down the pH of your soil, you may add to it some acidic salt, say ammonium chloride.  |
Thanks for your help
I have put sulphur on the ph9 soil - that seems to be helping a little.
I don't seem to be able to buy ammonium chloride from the local nurseries.
but thank you for your advice I have never encountered soil that alkaline before and no garden experts seam to know the answer. i wonder how it became that alkaline-
the soil might be remnants of an old lake- but you would think that with lots of shells and things it would be acid?
I get lost with atoms. I just can't imagine anything that small;. if I can't see it in my head I can't understand it. Yes I know its like little solar systems etc but I still haven't got a handle on it.
So I gather I will need a nuclear reactor to break up salt any further than sodium and chlorine?
OK can anything be added to sodium or chlorine to make them something different?
Something innocuous say that could go on soil?
This was in Wikipedia
Ionization potential
The energy required to detach an electron in its lowest energy state from an atom or molecule of a gas with less net electric charge is called the ionization potential, or ionization energy. The nth ionization energy of an atom is the energy required to detach its nth electron after the first n − 1 electrons have already been detached.
Each successive ionization energy is markedly greater than the last. Particularly great increases occur after any given block of atomic orbitals is exhausted of electrons. For this reason, ions tend to form in ways that leave them with full orbital blocks. For example, sodium has one valence electron, in its outermost shell, so in ionized form it is commonly found with one lost electron, as Na+. On the other side of the periodic table, chlorine has seven valence electrons, so in ionized form it is commonly found with one gained electron, as Cl−
Wikipedia
