CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

Given just a ligand, how can you determine the maximum number of places on the ligand that can bind simultaneously to a single metal center?

Ex. For , how do you determine if it is monodentate, bidentate, or tridentate ligand?

You can draw the lewis structure and determine what the structure is and where the lone pairs are located. See if the lone pairs are pointing in the same direction then determine if they can both bond to the cental metal ion.

The textbook has a chart on page 724 in the 7th edition telling you the possible number of common ligands.