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Comparing formal charges to oxidation states
How formal charges and oxidation states are both ways of counting electrons.
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- Why are the definitions "hypothetical"? Are formal charges solely hypothetical or are they practical?(11 votes)
- The most useful definition of hypothetical for you would be : "supposed but not necessarily real or true."
In this instance, the hypothetical charge is the charge calculated by assuming either a) bonding electrons are shared equally or b) bonding electrons are assigned to the more electronegative atom
Therefore, these are hypothetical values because they are only true after we have made some assumption. They are not intrinsic to the atoms themselves.(24 votes)
- what is the use of formal charge or oxidation number??(13 votes)
- Understanding formal charge and oxidation states really helps with understanding mechanisms of reactions.(20 votes)
- What would be the formal charge/oxidation number for the oxygen in these exercises. I paused the video and tried to work it out. Here is my reasoning:
Formal charge - Oxygen has six valence electrons and two bonds. So the formal charge would be 6 - 2 = 4
Oxidation state - Oxygen has six valence electrons and two bonds. It is the more electronegatative element for both bonds. Therefore, it's oxidation state would be 6 - 2 - 2 = 2
Is this correct?(4 votes)- No. They are not drawn, but each oxygen has two sets of lone pair electrons.
Formal charge = 6 VE - 2(from two bonds) - 4 (from lone pairs) = 0
Oxidation state = 6 VE - 4 (from two bonds with less electronegative atoms) - 4 (lone pairs) = -2(16 votes)
- does the free end of the structure always represent methyl group?(5 votes)
- If the structure ends in a line and no other element is specified, it's a methyl group(5 votes)
- What is the use of formal charge and oxidation charge? I understand how to do it, but I don't know why we need to do it.(7 votes)
- formal charge help us to understand how much cordination covalent bond we have in compond(3 votes)
- why do we need concepts like oxidation states, and formal charge.?(5 votes)
- They help us keep track of electrons during reactions and often help us to predict the atoms at which reactions will occur.(5 votes)
- Since alcohols have a OH bonded to it are they basic?(3 votes)
- they are lewis bases but not because of the OH but because oxygen has lone pairs he can donate to lewis acids. they are also acidic because they can donate a proton making strong alkoxyde base in the process.(4 votes)
- At0:26he says "methanol." I know this is a pretty elementary question, but why does methanol end in "ol"? As for a question actually pertaining to the video, does anyone have classic examples of molecules being used to teach oxidation states. (like practice problems?)(2 votes)
- Methanol is a combination of the base "methane" plus an alcohol group, which tends to be simplified in nomenclature by "ol". Thus, we have methanol.(5 votes)
- can we see carbon structures by any equipment or are they imaginary structures?(2 votes)
- The equipment exists that allows us to see fuzzy images of molecules.
However, for the most part, we imagine that molecules have the shape they do because all their chemical and physical properties are consistent with those structures.(3 votes)
- Would the carbon atom be quote unquote "satisfied" with a certain number of electrons and as a result not attract all 6 electrons to it? Is that the definition of polarity?(1 vote)
- Well the carbon is satisfied with the number of electrons it has in methanol. It has an octet (8) of electrons from bonding with the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. It’s sharing those eight electrons with the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in covalent bonds, but the sharing isn’t equitable. Certain elements have more attraction to electrons than others and so the electrons end up spending more time around one atom compared to the other in a bond. Electronegativity is the measure of this attraction elements have for electrons. In a covalent bond, the bonding electrons spend more time around the more electronegative atom as opposed to the less electronegative one.
Being polar in this context means one end has an excess of negative charge while the other has a lack of negative charge (or is positive). Individual bonds can be polar if the bonding atoms have a high enough electronegativity difference, and therefore the more electronegative atom pulls much stronger on the electrons than the other. Entire molecules are most often where we use polarity and it describes a molecule with a negative and positive pole (or side). For a molecule to be polar it requires polar bonds and certain molecular geometries so the dipole moments of the polar bonds don’t cancel.
Formal charge and oxidation number are just convenient ways of assigning electrons to atoms in molecules. The only difference between the two is that formal charge doesn’t take into account electronegativity, while oxidation number does. Both of these system simply account for electrons to make the math simpler. Regardless of what system we use, the carbon is still satisfied because it has an octet of electrons.
Hope that helps.(3 votes)
Video transcript
- Both formal charge and oxidation states are ways of counting electrons, and they're both very useful concepts. Let's start with formal charge. So one definition for formal charge is the hypothetical charge that would result if all bonding electrons
are shared equally. So let's go down to the dot
structure on the left here, which is a dot structure for methanol, and let's assign a
formal charge to carbon. We need to think about
the bonding electrons or the electrons in those
bonds around carbon, and we know that each bond
consists of two electrons. So the bond between oxygen and carbon consists of two electrons. Let me go ahead and draw
in those two electrons. Same for the bond between
carbon and hydrogen, right? Each bond consists of two electrons, so I can go around and put in
all of my bonding electrons. So if we want to assign a
formal charge to carbon, we need to think about the
number of valence electrons in the free atom or the
number of valence electrons that carbon is supposed to have. We already know that
carbon is supposed to have four valence electrons, so
I could put a four here, and from that four we're going to subtract the number of valence
electrons in the bonded atom or the number of valence electrons that carbon has around it in our drawing. And since we're doing formal charge, we need to think about all
those bonding electrons being shared equally. So we think about a covalent bond. So if we have two electrons and one bond, and those two electrons
are shared equally, we could split them up. We could give one electron to oxygen and one electron to carbon in that bond. We go over here to this
carbon hydrogen bond, and we could do the same thing. We have two electrons. We could split up those two electrons. We could give one to
carbon and one to hydrogen, and we go all the way around, and we do the same thing over here. Split up those electrons
and the same thing here. So how many valence electrons
do we see around carbon now? So let me go ahead and highlight them. There's one, two, three, and four. So that's the number of valence electrons around carbon in our drawing. So four minus four is equal to zero. So zero is the formal charge of carbon. So let me go ahead and
highlight that here. So in this molecule the formal
charge for carbon is zero. Now let's move on to
oxidation states, right? So you could also call
these oxidation numbers. So one definition for
an oxidation state is the hypothetical charge that would result if all those bonding
electrons are assigned to the more electronegative atom in the bond. So let's go to the dot structure
on the right of methanol and let's assign an oxidation
state to that carbon. We need to think about our
bonding electrons again, so let's go ahead and
put those in, all right? So we know that each bond
consists of two electrons. So I'm putting in the two
electrons in each bond, and let's think about the
oxidation state of that carbon. Well first, we need to know
the number of valence electrons in the free atom. So just like before, we know that carbon is supposed to have
four valence electrons. So this would be a four,
and from that we subtract the number of valence
electrons in the bonded atom or the number of valence electrons that carbon actually has in the drawing. This time we need to
think about an ionic bond, so we're going to pretend
like a covalent bond is an ionic bond, because
we're going to assign all of the bonding electrons to the more electronegative atom. So there's no more sharing here. Winner takes all. The more electronegative atom is going to get all of the electrons. So let's think about
the electronegativities of carbon versus oxygen, all right? We know that oxygen is more
electronegative than carbon. So oxygen takes both of
those electrons in that bond. So oxygen gets both of those electrons. Next let's think about
the electronegativities of carbon and hydrogen. We know that carbon is a little bit more
electronegative than hydrogen. So for these two electrons, carbon's going to take both of them since carbon is more
electronegative than hydrogen, and the same thing for our
other carbon hydrogen bonds. Carbon is more
electronegative than hydrogen, so carbon takes those. Carbon is more
electronegative than hydrogen, so carbon takes those. And so, how many electrons
do we have around carbon now? Let's count them up. That's one, two, three, four, five, and six. So now we have six
electrons around carbon. So four minus six gives us negative two. So here in this example carbon has an oxidation state of negative two. So there's no more sharing when you're doing oxidation states, right? Think about the more electronegative atom and assign both electrons to
the more electronegative atom. Both formal charge and
oxidation states are just really extreme methods of
electron bookkeeping, right? They're not perfect. They're certainly not perfect, right? We're assuming that the electrons are either shared equally, perfectly, or that one atom takes both electrons, and neither of those concepts
is perfect in the real world, but it works when we're
drawing our dot structures and we're thinking about
chemical reactions.