* Made of two or more different elements chemically bonded together.
Table salt, the most common type of salt, is specifically sodium chloride (NaCl). This means it's formed by the chemical combination of the elements sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl).
Here's why it's not just a mixture:
* Mixtures can be separated by physical means (like filtering or evaporation), but the components of a compound can only be separated by chemical reactions.
* Compounds have a fixed ratio of elements, always the same. In NaCl, there's always one sodium atom for every chlorine atom.
So, because salt is formed by the chemical bonding of two different elements, it's correctly classified as a compound.
