What's in a name?

By Education in Chemistry2009-03-01T00:00:00

Many chemical compounds have several possible names. Peter Nelson, University of Hull, asks: 'Which ones should teachers use?'

The Association for Science Education (ASE) has addressed this question, and published a list of names for use at 16-19.¹ These names are based on general rules for naming compounds approved by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).² ASE names are used by examination boards, and have the approval of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).³

There is, however, a problem with these names in that many of them are different from those recommended by IUPAC (see Table).^2,4 This is because IUPAC does not recommend a systematic name when another name is widely used.

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