How many electrons are in oxide and in oxygen
The neutral element, oxygen, has eight electrons. Two electrons are added to make the oxide ion and that contains 10 electrons and a -2 charge.
To determine the number of electrons in oxide and oxygen, we need to look at their chemical formulas.
Oxide typically refers to a compound composed of oxygen and another element. The chemical formula for oxide can vary depending on the element it is combined with, but let's consider the most common case, which is oxygen combining with one other element. In this scenario, the chemical formula for oxide is written as "Ox," where "x" represents the other element.
For example, if we have sodium oxide (Na2O), the subscript "2" indicates that there are two sodium atoms. In this case, the number of oxygen atoms is one since the subscript is not explicitly shown. However, we can assume there is one oxygen atom because the chemical formula for sodium oxide is Na2O.
Since each oxygen atom, regardless of the compound it is in, has 8 electrons, there are 8 electrons in the oxide.
Now let's look at oxygen itself. The chemical formula for oxygen gas is O2, indicating that two oxygen atoms are joined together. Each oxygen atom in the diatomic molecule O2 has 6 valence electrons. Therefore, there are 12 electrons in the oxygen molecule.
To summarize:
- In oxide (Ox) compounds, there are 8 electrons per oxygen atom.
- In oxygen (O2) molecules, there are 12 electrons per oxygen molecule.