Transition Metals

[ZacharyKrauss1A]

When counting the number of valence electrons to construct your Lewis structure for elements in groups 3-12 (transition metals) how do you know how many valence electrons they are going to have? Can they have more than 8 for instance?

[Jayden Lee 2F]

Hello ! For transition metals, counting valence electrons is trickier because they have electrons in both the outermost s orbital and the d orbitals just below it. They can have more than 8 valence electrons since those d orbitals are involved, which is why transition metals can form all kinds of weird bonds and oxidation states. Hope this helped !