Identifying Radicals

[Kaitlyn Hernandez 3I]

In Wednesday's lecture, Lavelle went over how radicals are exceptions to the octet rule. How do we identify whether a molecule is a radical or not? Would we just have to draw the Lewis dot structure? Thank you!

[Audrey Han 3L]

I'm not sure if we'll be expected to draw out radicals, but you can always tell if there's a singluar lone electron that's unpaired.

[isha dis3d]

I believe that if there ever if one electron that is not paired in a molecule it would be considered a radical.

[Jasraj Parmar 3H]

If an atom or molecule has an unpaired valence electron, then it would be a radical. This is the same for ions also.

[Rich Luong 1D]

Usually radicals are molecules with unpaired electrons. For example, OH will have one unpaired electron which causes it to be highly reactive and unstable.

[Lisa Seidl 3H]

Another way to tell is if the total amount of valence electrons is an odd number since that would mean that there is an unpaired electron.

[Shrinidhy Srinivas 3L]

This was actually really helpful for me, because I didn't quite understand what a radical was. My follow up question is whether any element can be a radical or if only a certain group are radicals.

[Keon Amirazodi 3H]

From what I understood, radicals are when atoms have unpaired electrons in their outer shell.

[Griffin G]

If you're drawing a lewis structure and notice there's a single lonely unpaired electron.

[John Calonia 1D]

Often times, molecules that would have radicals are shown as ions to subtract or add electrons to get rid of the radical, however, if a molecule has an odd amount of electrons, you would know that there is a radical because there is one electron without another electron to form a bonding pair or a lone pair with.

[Marc Lubman 3B]

This was actually really helpful for me, because I didn't quite understand what a radical was. My follow up question is whether any element can be a radical or if only a certain group are radicals.

I think that only atoms with unpaired valence electrons can be radicals since if they had only pairs of electrons but lost or gained some to be left with an unpaired electron, they'd become ions, which are not radicals. Keep in mind though that some of the elements that are naturally radicals form diatomic molecules because of their natural reactivity. A few examples would be the halogens, which all have an unpaired electron, or oxygen, which has two unpaired electrons.

[Kathy_Li_1H]

Hi! The best way to identify a radical is that there will be an unpaired electron on one of the atoms.

[Helena Xu 3L]

Radicals have an unpaired electron and would be identified with a single dot rather than a lone pair or bond in Lewis structures.

[Gian Boco 2G]

Having a single unpaired electron would form a radical.

[Sandy Lin 1L]

Usually, when you count up the valence electrons and there is an odd number you will have a radical. You can see this when you draw out the lewis structure and there is a single unpaired electron represented by a dot.

[Keshav Patel 14B 2B]

The easiest way to identify a radical is to first count the amount of valence electrons. Once you do this, anytime you have an odd amount of electrons, it is a radical. But often, they can be balanced you may have just forgot to add or subtract electrons according to the charge.

[t_rasul2I]

Hi Kaitlyn. You can identify radicals by normally drawing out a Lewis structure and assigning formal charges to find the lowest formal charge. An example is laughing gas or nitric oxide (NO) and seeing that the lowest formal charge is when N has a radical.

[Francesca_Borchardt_2D]

I was having trouble with this as well. All of the responses really helped. Thank you all!!

[Lauren Sarigumba 1K]

Radicals are species that have electrons with unpaired spins, which means that they are not a part of a pair. This can be seen using a lewis structure. Radicals are also highly reactive and have a fleeting existence. Radicals also do not fulfill the octet rule because they do not have enough valence electrons to complete the octet.

[Yuehan_Wu_3K]

you could use the definition that the radicals are highly reactive and ofeten exist for short time.

[Anthony_3C]

Hello! To add on to previous points, molecules with one unpaired electron are called radicals and those with two unpaired electrons are called biradicals.

A picture here for examples:

[Dominic Benna 2E]

You can tell if there is an odd number of valance electrons or on the diagram there is a lone electron.

[Arnav Saud 2C]

A radical is a species with an unpaired electron. This lone electron makes the species incredibly reactive.

[Brian Nguyen 2I]

You can identify a radical when there is the presence of a lone unpaired electron. One example is CH3.

[Yolanda_Xing_3A]

when there is one electron left unpaired, it is radical.