Consider the Lewis structure shown below.

(a) Does the Lewis structure depict a neutral molecule or an ion? If it is an ion, what is the charge on the ion? What is the charge on the ion

Video transcript

Hey everyone, we're asked if the lewis structure is a representation of a neutral compound or an ion. If it is an ion, we have to determine the charge of it first. Let's go ahead and determine the total number of valence electrons based on our formula. Starting with carbon, we know that carbon is in our group for a So we're going to multiply two times four since we have two of carbon, this will get us to eight valence electrons for hydrogen. We're going to multiply three times one and this will get us to three valence electrons. Lastly for oxygen we have two of oxygen and we're going to multiply this by six. Since oxygen is in our group six A This will get us to 12 valence electrons In total. We have 23 valence electrons. Now that we've calculated our valence electrons based on our chemical formula. Let's go ahead and count the number of valence electrons based on our structure. So we have 2468, 10 12 14 16 18 2022 24. So based on our structure, we have 24 valence electrons. And since we have one extra valence electron compared to our 23 valence electrons from our chemical formula. This means our structure is an an ion and it has a charge of minus one and this is going to be our final answer. So I hope that made sense. And let us know if you have any questions