I was thinking about how to approach Study of Compounds differently, so that all those equations make more sense. I was wondering why the ICSE has chosen these four compounds, and then realized that it must be because they are important chemicals in the industry.
I decided to look at the prominence of these compounds in the chemical industry, and was amazed to find that sulfuric acid is the most widely manufactured compound in the world, over 150 million tons of it every year! (There’s even a magazine called Sulfuric Acid Today!) Ammonia, hydrochloric acid and nitric acid also come in the top 20 chemicals manufactured in the industry.
These are used in further industrial processes to create an almost endless variety of consumer products like- well, you know!
These compounds are so widely used because they have some special properties. And the reactions you have to learn are also related to these properties.
Now here is the task for you! Can you find out the different important uses of these four compounds, find out the properties that are made use of, and link those properties to the different chemical reactions and equations that you have in your text book? See if you can find out how each of the reactions of these compounds is made use of in the industry.
Wikipedia would be a good place to start.
All of it may not be straightforward, you may have to do some investigation and thinking to link the practical uses to the reactions in your text book.
P.S. This assignment is optional, for those who are interested. If you don’t feel like investigating all the reactions, you can also choose a few of them and find out about them. It will be interesting if you can share the information your findings and conclusions through comments.