Oxidation Review

[Jenny Chau 1I]

I never did anything with oxidation numbers in my high school chem class and though I think we may have done a little bit with this in 14A, I don't think it was very extensive. Does anyone know any resources for reviewing this or have any tips on determining oxidation numbers?

[Margia Adriano 2A]

Hi! There are a few general rules that you can know that will help you assign oxidation numbers that I know of off the top of my head:
1. free elements are going to be 0
2. sum of oxidation numbers in an uncharged compound should be 0, while the sum on a charged compound should be the charge (like OH-, everything should add up to -1)
3. usually oxidation numbers are going to be the same as their ionic charge
As for resources, there are a lot of articles out there that have different general rules, I believe Khan academy has something on this, but I'm not too sure, but it doesn't hurt to check! Hope this helps!

[Veronica Macias 3K]

Hi! This video covers oxidation numbers pretty well; it covers all of the rules relating to oxidation numbers and goes over some examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0hI-a6EWWo

[Margaret Wang 2D]

From what I remember from high school, oxidation of oxygen is usually always -2 and hydrogen +1. Only elements in compounds have oxidation numbers. The other elements can be determined by adding up the oxidation numbers in the compound and setting that equal to the overall compound charge. For example, in CO2, Carbon has +4 to balance out the 2 * -2 of the two oxygens

[Megan Hulsy 1A]

Hi! I'd definitely check out The Organic Chemistry Tutor's videos, they're excellent in explaining the concepts needed for review in many different areas, especially electrochemistry!