"salgud" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> "When you mix vinegar with baking soda (another name for it here, don't
> know
> if you call it that there), you get salt and water."
> Where does the carbon (it's in both vinegar and baking soda, but not in
> water or common salts) go?

Simple - the "fizz" is carbon dioxide.

Actually, with sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid (which is
the acid in vinegar), you do NOT get "salt" in the sense of
table salt (sodium chloride, NaCl); you get water plus
carbon dioxide (the gas bubbles) and sodium acetate.

Ordinary salt plus water results from a reaction betweeh
hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sodium hydroxide (lye, or
NaOH) - but you don't to try this as a means of making
salt water, as if you aren't very careful in balancing the
two original materials (both of which are pretty nasty
stuff), you'll wind up with a leftover amount of one or
the other.

Bob M.