Formal Charge

[Madelyn Cearlock]

Can someone explain the other way to determine the formal charge? The formula used in class confuses me and I am aware there is another, clearer way!

[ElliotPourdavoud 1A]

Another way is to count each electron that surrounds the atom in question and give it a value of 1 (ex. if an atom has 1 lone pair, you count both electrons as 1) then you count each bond as 1, (ex. if an atom has 2 bonds each bond is counted as 1) then you just add those values together and subtract from the valence electrons of the atom. Ex. If an atom has 6 valence electrons, and two lone pairs and two bonds, its formal charge is 0 because the 2 lone pairs = 4 and the two bonds = 2, 6-6= 0.

[Grace Kim 1J]

Instead of using the formula, a shortcut in finding the formal charge is (number of valence electrons - number of the dots/number of lines).

Here is a good youtube video I found explaining how to use the shortcut method!
Hope this helps!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fSDZypRB0

[Millicent Navarro 1I]

Personally, the way I look at calculating the formal charge is through this equation:
Number of valence electrons - (Lone pairs + Bonds)

# of valence electrons: Given through the periodic table based on their period position (Ex: Carbon has 4 V.E. because it is located in Period 4.)
Lone pairs: The number of "dots" around an element
Bonds: The number of "lines" in between two elements

[Anmol_cheema_2F]

Basically the formula can be see as FC= # of valence electrons-( # of dots + # of lines)
the # of dots are just the lone pairs and the # of lines is just the S/2 or number of bonds between atoms

[yea-lyn pak_1G]

You can just count the number of dots (each electron in a lone pair) and the number of lines (the number of pairs of electrons). Then subtract the number you counted from the number of valence electrons the atom has.

[Anand Narayan 1G]

The one I find the most helpful is # of valence electrons - (Lone electrons + Bonds)

[Arlene Linares 3A]

Instead of using the formula, a shortcut in finding the formal charge is (number of valence electrons - number of the dots/number of lines).

Here is a good youtube video I found explaining how to use the shortcut method!
Hope this helps!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fSDZypRB0

Thank you for the video.

[Jack Hewitt 2H]

Number of valence electrons - (number of lone electrons + number of lines drawn)