What does salt water have that normal water doesnt?

Answer 1

Fresh water has little or nothing in it except water. Salt water, specifically ocean water, has 3.5 % by weight of various salt, the most dominant being basic NaCl.

Fresh waster, by definition has less than 1% of dissolved salts, but in practice most fresh water has much much less than 1%. For all practical purposes, almost all lakes and streams are nearly as pure as drinking water.

Read on if you want the chemical breakdown of salt water.

More:

Oceans represent 96.5 % of all water and fresh water is 2.5% with 1% saline ground water.

Glaciers, snow, fresh ground water, lakes and streams are fresh water. (Some interesting and peculiar things happen when an inland lake is isolated with no outlet to the ocean, but that is a special case.)

The concentration of salt in all ocean water (also called sea water) is pretty much uniform at 3.5 % by weight. Not all of that is sodium chloride, (Na+, Cl-).

The ocean contains calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium with bicarbonate sulfate, chlorine and bromine. (If you remove the water, then what is left is, by weight, Cl− 55%, Na+ 30.6%, SO4--, 4 7.7%, Mg2+ 3.7%, Ca++ 1.2%, K+ 1.1%, other 0.7%.)

The small variation in saltiness of the oceans is actually very important and is connected with global ocean currents. Most notably, the antarctic ice forms in the arctic winter squeezing out much of the salt as it freezes and setting up a dense cold ocean current that moves across vast stretches of the worlds oceans.

No, ocean water is salt water. Fresh water would be found in ponds, lakes, or rivers.

Answer 2

Salt water contains dissolved salts, such as sodium chloride, whereas normal water is pure H2O without any dissolved substances. Salt water has a higher density, freezes at a lower temperature, and conducts electricity due to the presence of ions from the dissolved salts.