formal charge

[Abigail Carter 4G]

When you are drawing lewis structures do you always need to solve for formal charge? Are there molecules that automatically do not have a formal charge and therefore don't need to solve the equation for?

[Akshay Chellappa 1H]

I believe that you only need to solve for formal charge if the question asks you to find the lowest energy lewis structure. I believe you wouldn't need to find the formal charge for compounds such as methane, ethane, and some of the other alkanes because they consist of single bonds and there aren't any loan pair electrons found in those compounds.

[Maggie Eberhardt - 2H]

So just to clarify, we only have to find the formal charge when it asks us to? Or should we always draw lewis structures using formal charge?

[Jillian C 4C]

I think you should only solve formal charge when the question asks or if there's resonance and you want to find the most stable structure.

[Abigail_Hagen2G]

You really only need to do it when they ask for it. But you should when drawing resonance structures just so you can find out if it's more stable.

[RasikaObla_4I]

Usually, you only want to find formal charges if the question asks for it, but when drawing lewis structures with or without a charge, you want to calculate the formal charge of each atom and see if all the formal charges add up to the charge of the molecule.

[Maya Gollamudi 1G]

If a molecule can potentially have multiple possible structures, it is a good idea to calculate the formal charge of each atom so that you are drawing the lowest energy structure possible.

[Ashley Nguyen 2L]

Formal charge is really mostly used to find the most stable resonance structure, so I would calculate it if a molecule has more than just single bonds