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( Sulfide)
The term sulfide (sulphide in British English) refers to several types of chemical compounds containing sulfur in its lowest oxidation number of -2. Formally, "sulfide" is the dianion, S2-, which exists in strongly alkaline aqueous solutions formed from H2S or alkali metal salts such as Li2S, Na2S, and K2S. Sulfide is exceptionally basic and, with a pKa > 14, it does not exist in appreciable concentrations even in highly alkaline water, being undetectable at pH < ~15 (8 M NaOH). Instead, sulfide combines with electrons in hydrogen to form HS-, which is variously called hydrogen sulfide ion, hydrosulfide ion, sulfhydryl ion, or bisulfide ion. At still lower pH's (<7), HS- converts to H2S, hydrogen sulfide. Aqueous solutions of transition metals cations react with sulfide sources (H2S, NaSH, Na2S) to precipitate solid sulfides. Such inorganic sulfides typically have very low solubility in water and many are related to minerals. One famous example is the bright yellow species CdS or "cadmium yellow". The black tarnish formed on sterling silver is Ag2S. Such species are sometimes referred to as salts. In fact the bonding in transition metal sulfides is highly covalent, which gives rise to their semiconductor properties, which in turn is related to the practical applications of many sulfide materials. In organic chemistry, "sulfide" usually refers to the linkage C-S-C, although the term thioether is less ambiguous. For example, the thioether dimethyl sulfide is CH3-S-CH3. Polyphenylene sulfide (see below) has the empirical formula C6H4S. Occasionally, the term sulfide refers to molecules containing the -SH functional group. For example, methyl sulfide can mean CH3-SH. The preferred descriptor for such SH-containing compounds is thiol or mercaptan, i.e. methanethiol or methyl mercaptan.
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