Assign oxidation numbers to each element in the following ions.
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Question

Assign oxidation numbers to each element in the following ions. 
(c) C2O4 2-

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone. So in this video we're trying to determine the oxidation state of each element in this ion right over here. So Austrian usually has an oxidation state of -2. With some exceptions. Those exceptions are if it's reacting with a peroxide or a super oxide, but in this case we don't have that. So we don't need to worry about that. So the oxidation state of oxygen will remain as the expected negative to value. All right, you can see right off the bat that the charge, the overall charge of our ion here is a -4 charge. Let's spread this out. So the overall charge Of the molecule is equal to -4. This is very important for our calculations. And then we're gonna go ahead and let x equal to the oxidation states of elemental symbol P which is just phosphorus. We'll go ahead and rewrite our molecule or ion here, which is P 2074 minus. We said earlier that the P is our unknown. So that's an X. Each oxygen atom provides an oxidation state of negative two. So we also said that the overall charge is negative for that's what all the summit all the oxidation state should give us. So everything will equal to negative four. So here we see that we have two atoms of our unknown. So that's a two X. And again, we're just adding everything. So we'll just add the following set and then our oxygen here we have seven items of auction Each atom of oxygen provides a negative two oxidation state. So here, just simple math. We're just simplifying it down to solve for X. So seven times negative two is equal to negative 14. We're bringing negative 14 over to the other side of the equation side, so we add 14 on both sides. Will get a positive 10 equaling two R two X. Again, we're trying to solve for X here, so go ahead and divide both sides by two. If I do so, I'll get positive five equaling two X. So therefore we get that the oxidation state which are simplified to us Of phosphorus here, so P is equal to positive five and our oxygen is equal to negative two. So right over here is going to be our final answer for this problem.

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