Formal Charge of a compound

[josephyim1L]

Does the overall formal charge of an atom (addition of formal charges of individual atoms) always have to add up to the overall charge of the compound? If the overall charge of the compound is +1 does the addition of the fc of each atom have to add up to +1?

[Katie Sy 1L]

yes the overall formal charge of the atom will equal the total of the formal charge of each element in the atom

[Shreya Tamatam 3B]

Hi, just to add on, if you look at the example we did in lecture where we assigned formal charged to a sulfate ion (SO4^2-) we see that two of the oxygen atoms had a -1 charge while all the other atoms had 0 charge. Because two atoms had a -1 charge, the total charge for the molecule was -2.

[Eunice Lee 1A]

The overall charge can be zero, but it doesn't have to be.