central atom

[Nare Arakelian Dis 3E]

Do we want to make it so that the central atom has a formal charge of zero?

[Elizabeth Johnson 1I]

yes! If it's possible, you're going to want the charges to be on the surrounding atoms rather than the central atom. I honestly couldn't tell you exactly why it's better, but it's better to not have a localized charge.

[Alfred Barrion 2H]

You would want the formal charge on the central atom to be closer to zero because its supposed to be the least electronegative.

[005162902]

Yes! If the formal charge of the central atom is zero, the central atom is in a stable state.

[selatran1h]

yes, ideally the central atom should have a formal charge of zero to create the most stable lewis structure.

[derinceltik1K]

you would want the central atom to have the lowest possible formal charge. It is better for outside atoms to carry the charge than the central atom.

[Jasmine Fendi 1D]

yes! I think that it is better to have the charge on the most electronegative atom, such as oxygen

[Angela Patel 2J]

How do we know what the central atom should be?

[lauraxie2e]

yes ideally you want every atom to have a formal charge of 0

[Anish Patel 4B]

How do we know what the central atom should be?

The central atom is usually the least electronegative one.

[AniP_2D]

Yes, when drawing a lewis structure, the optimal structure will have a central atom with formal charge 0. It would be ideal for all of the atoms to have a formal charge of 0, but since this is not always possible your main concern should be to make the central atom have a formal charge of 0.

[AronCainBayot2K]

The central atom should be the most electronegative and while creating Lewis Structures, you want the formal charge to be as close to 0 as possible. You may need to change/add bonds such as by adding double bonds to fulfill that formal charge, it just depends on the compound given.

[Astrid Lunde 1I]

How do we know what the central atom should be?

It is the least electronegative atom

[Astrid Lunde 1I]

Yes, the optimal structure would be the middle atom having a 0 charge.

[Presley Gao 2C]

Yes, we want to make it so that the central atom has a formal charge of zero, or as close to zero as it can get - that would be the ideal situation.

[Abigail_Hagen2G]

Yes, the central atom should have a zero charge

[Patricia Chan 1C]

Yes, ideally the central atom should have a formal charge of 0. This is because we want the central atom to be the least electronegative atom of the molecule.

[Daniel Yu 1E]

What do you do for exceptions? Such as in an atom consisting of N and O, which would be the central atom? O technically has the lower ionization energy than N. Does the number of desired bonds matter when considering the central atom more than the electronegativity?

[Aman Sankineni 2L]

What do you do for exceptions? Such as in an atom consisting of N and O, which would be the central atom? O technically has the lower ionization energy than N. Does the number of desired bonds matter when considering the central atom more than the electronegativity?

I believe the atom with the lower ionization energy still should be the central atom.

[Max Madrzyk Dis 4G]

Yes, you always want the most formal charges to be zero in any way that is possible.

[Jacob Villar 2C]

At a formal charge of zero, the atom would be the most stable, so yes.

[Elizabeth Johnson 1I]

You would want the formal charge on the central atom to be closer to zero because its supposed to be the least electronegative.

this confuses me bc in our discussion, our TA gave the example of PCl5, which has a -1 charge. The lewis structure has the P in the middle with a formal charge of -1, but that conflicts with the general rule of wanted the charge to be delocalized. Why?