Chlorine dioxide gas 1ClO22 is used as a commercial bleaching agent. It bleaches materials by oxidizing them. In the course of these reactions, the ClO2 is itself reduced. (b) Why do you think that ClO2 is reduced so readily?

Video transcript

Hi everyone here, we have a question telling us that nitrogen dioxide gas is widely used as an oxidizer in hybrid rocket fuels. In the process, nitrogen dioxide is reduced. The structure of nitrogen dioxide is shown below explain why nitrogen dioxide is easily reduced. So we're going to use leo losing electrons is oxidizing, gaining electrons is reducing. So based on the structure of nitrogen dioxide, there's an unpaid electron on the central atom and this will give an odd total number of electrons adding an electron to the lone electron, will complete the octet and make all the electrons paired. This is more stable, thus nitrogen dioxide has a strong tendency to gain an electron and be reduced and that is our final answer. Thank you for watching. Bye.