Bonding Pair e-

[Addison Myers - Dis 2L]

Today in my discussion, there was a lewis structure up on the board; it was for XeOF2. The oxygen was double bonded to the xenon rather than just having its last 2 valence e- as a lone pair. My TA said it was because the oxygen was slightly negatively charged and the xenon was slightly positively charged, so the double bond canceled those out and it made the molecule more stable.

So do I assume molecules with neutral atoms are the most stable and set up my lewis structures that way? And if so, how can you tell if an atom is charged by just looking at the lewis structure, or how do you find out?

[ashleyhchung]

Hi! I do believe a way to figure out if an atom is charged is by looking at its formal charge. The formal charge is found by subtracting the number of valence electrons of an atom in a neutral state by the number of unpaired electrons and half the number of bonded electrons in a lewis structure.