Both silver nitrate and sodium chloride are soluble in water. So is sodium nitrate, but silver chloride is not. The driving force for this reaction is the formation of the insoluble silver chloride. When a solid forms from a reaction of this type, it is referred to as a precipitate , and reactions that form a precipitate, precipitation reactions . Silver chloride and sodium nitrate are the two products of this reaction.
Silver chloride is insoluble while sodium nitrate is soluble in water.
The two products can be separated by filtration. It is possible to predict whether reactions of this type will occur by studying the solubility rules for inorganic salts in water. Table 7.1 and Figure 7.3 summarize these rules. We can take any two salts and guess the products by assuming a double displacement. Substances like FeCl 3 or HCl are completely soluble in water and exist in water as ions, rather than as molecules in the solid or gas phase.