Nitrate radical sodium chloride, reaction with

Bases, Neutral Salts.— As a base it forms salts, in which form the diazo compound is obtained by diazotization, and which though also unstable has been isolated in small quantities and the composition and properties determined. Of the three salts, the sulphate, chloride and nitrate, the first is the most stable and the last is the least stable. They are colorless crystalline neutral compounds soluble in water, difficultly soluble in alcohol and insoluble in ether. After being prepared by the ordinary diazo reaction, with sodium nitrite in cold acid water solution, they may be precipitated in crystalline form by the addition of alcohol and ether. If the diazotization is effected in alcohol solution by means of amyl nitrite or ethyl nitrite the crystals of the diazonium salt separate at once. These salts of diazo benzene all show true salt characteristics, e.g., they lower the freezing point of solutions. The diazo radical, (CeHs—N2—) is thus basic toward strong acids, and the hydroxide, the non-isolated hypothetical diazo benzene, CeHs—N2—OH, is the free base. It may be considered as the simplest aromatic diazo compound and the mother substance of all other members of the class. 

The comparatively feeble basic reaction of an aqueous solution of ammonia is traceable to this tendency to decomposition, and not to lack of ionization of the ammonium hydroxide.1 In the neutral reaction of its salts with strong acids, such as the chloride and nitrate, and in the alkaline reaction of those with weak acids, exemplified by the carbonate and cyanide, the radical ammonium displays complete analogy with the metals potassium and sodium. This fact constitutes a strong argument in favour of the view that ammonium hydroxide, so far as it is present in an aqueous solution of ammonia, is to a great extent ionized. 

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