Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Formal charges in ozone and the nitrate anion. In chemistry, a formal charge (F.C. or q*), in the covalent view of chemical bonding, is the hypothetical charge assigned to an atom in a molecule, assuming that electrons in all chemical bonds are shared equally between atoms, regardless of relative electronegativity.
The electric charge of a macroscopic object is the sum of the electric charges of the particles that it is made up of. This charge is often small, because matter is made of atoms, and atoms typically have equal numbers of protons and electrons, in which case their charges cancel out, yielding a net charge of zero, thus making the atom neutral.
In that case, the charge of an ion could be written as =. The charge number in chemistry normally relates to an electric charge. This is a property of specific subatomic atoms. These elements define the electromagnetic contact between the two elements. A chemical charge can be found by using the periodic table.
It has uses in determining possible electron re-configuration when referring to reaction mechanisms, and often results in the same sign as the partial charge of the atom, with exceptions. In general, the formal charge of an atom can be calculated using the following formula, assuming non-standard definitions for the markup used:
When writing the chemical formula for an ion, its net charge is written in superscript immediately after the chemical structure for the molecule/atom. The net charge is written with the magnitude before the sign; that is, a doubly charged cation is indicated as 2+ instead of +2. However, the magnitude of the charge is omitted for singly charged ...
The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. Atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element.
A simple example of a polyatomic ion is the hydroxide ion, which consists of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, jointly carrying a net charge of −1; its chemical formula is O H −. In contrast, an ammonium ion consists of one nitrogen atom and four hydrogen atoms, with a charge of +1; its chemical formula is N H + 4.
An example is the condensed molecular/chemical formula for ethanol, which is CH 3 −CH 2 −OH or CH 3 CH 2 OH. However, even a condensed chemical formula is necessarily limited in its ability to show complex bonding relationships between atoms, especially atoms that have bonds to four or more different substituents.