Water as a ligand

[rkang00]

If water is a ligand, how do we write it? There seems to be two ways of writing it: H2O and OH2, but I'm not clear on which style applies to which scenario.

[Andrea Zheng 1H]

Yes, you would use aqua. Lavelle has posted a "Naming Coordination Compounds" sheet on his website that has some common ligands and their names.

[rkang00]

What about in formulas? I'm not sure when to use H2O or OH2.

[ThomascnguyenDis1J]

Would using OH2 instead of H2O be wrong on a test? Is it not interchangable?

[Cole Elsner 2J]

OH2 and H2O are the same! Oxygen has the lone pairs, so that's where the coordinate covalent bond forms in every situation. Some put O first to show Oxygen is the bonding site, however both OH2 and H2O are the same thing

[305127455]

Writing in OH2 instead of H2O illustrates that it is the oxygen actually binding to the metal, so we should write OH2.