Sodium Hypochlorite

[Cecilia Jardon 1I]

In Sodium Hypochlorite does the pre-fix hypo signify an oxygen atom?

[jonathanjchang2E]

No, hypo- is a common prefix used to name the lowest number of atoms for a certain polyatomic ion group. For example, perchlorate = ClO4-, chlorate=ClO3-, chlorite=ClO2-, hypochlorite=ClO-. I think Dr. Lavelle will go more in depth on this later.

[megan blatt 2B]

The prefix hypo- tells you how many oxygen atoms there are in the compound. For polyatomic ions, the -ate suffix is the original form which is often best to memorize. Then, as the previous comment showed, the number of oxygen atoms changes with the prefixes/suffixes. The prefix per- means that you add an additional oxygen atom to the original -ate ion, the -ite suffix indicates that there will be one less oxygen atom than the -ate ion, and hypo- indicates two less oxygen atoms.