How do you count the electrons in a Lewis dot structure?

Answer 1

Count the electrons in the following way: -- each lone pair counts as 2 electrons -- each single bond counts as 2 electrons -- each double bound counts as 4 electrons -- each triple bond counts as 6 electons. -- if it an ion with a positive charge, subtract 1 electron for each charge from the total (after counting all the bonds and lone pairs) -- if it an ion with a negative charge, add 1 electron for each charge to the total (after counting all the bonds and lone pairs) Add up all the contributions for the total number of electrons!

Answer 2

Follow These 4 StepsUse these simple steps to determine the formal charges of each atom in a Lewis dot structure:

Step 1: For each atom in the Lewis dot structure, count the number of valence electrons for that atom (as if it just an atom by itself). See the Related Questions links at the bottom of the page for more information about how to do this.

Step 2: Count the number of electrons around each atom in the structure one at a time using these rules:

-- each lone pair counts as 2 electrons for that atom

-- each single bond counts as 1 electron for that atom

-- each double bond counts as 2 electrons for that atom, and each triple bond counts as 3

NOTE: These are not the same rules for how you count the total number of electrons in the structure! Do not confuse these two sets of rules!

Step 3: Subtract the number of valence electrons (from Step 1) from the number you got in Step 2. Do this for each atom, one at a time. The number you get (it can be positive, zero, or negative) is the formal charge assigned to that atom.

Step 4: Do the following important check. The overall charge on the molecule (zero for a neutral molecule, positive or negative for an ion) should be equal to the sum of the formal charges on each atom in the structure. If not, you made a mistake!

Answer 3

formal charge of an atom in a bond is measured by the number of electrons in it's last energy level.for an example Nitrogen has 5 electrons in it's last energy level.and when calculating the net formal charge, if the number of electrons in the last energy level of any atom increases,as electrons have a negative charge -1 should be added for each increased electron.

as an example in (NO3)^- nitrogen has contributed only 4 electrons to create bonds with oxygen as each bond is created sharing one electron from each atom.so there's a decrease of electrons in the last energy level of nitrogen.so it gets a +1 charge as it lacks one electron.

but if we consider the 3 oxygens around the nitrogen atom,one has 6 electrons which is the correct number of electrons in it's last energy level.but the other two has 7 which gives -1 charges for each atom.

and the total of all these charges equals to -1 which is the net formal charge of NO3.

Answer 4

The total charge