Ionic Lewis Structures

[Tiffany Chen 1A]

(Just wanted to clarify) When you draw the lewis structure for an ionic bond between a cation and an anion, do you just write the element of the cation with a positive charge next to the element of the anion with a negative charge? And you would draw out the electrons for only the anion but not the cation, right?

[Gianna Graziano 1A]

Hi Tiffany,
Lets say the compound was sodium chloride. You would write Na+ [Cl]-. Inside the brackets for Cl you would fill Cl octet. In other words there would be two dots on each side of Cl. It is not that you are ignoring Na's electrons, instead it is that Cl recieves them.

[Alexandra Wade 1L]

In a similar situation, if we look at K^+ and P^3- you would draw Phosphorus in brackets with a full octet and the negative 3 charge in the upper right. However differing from the Na+ Cl- example, there needs to be three K+'s surrounding the P because the phosphorus atom has gained 3 electrons instead of just one.