3. Chemical Reactions
Polyatomic Ions
Struggling with General Chemistry?
Join thousands of students who trust us to help them ace their exams!Watch the first video
Video duration:
1mRelated Videos
Related Practice
Skip to main content
Polyatomic ions represent tightly bound groups made of different elements that possess an overall charge. That charge can be either positive or negative. For now, we're gonna focus only on the negatively charged ones. So we're gonna take a look at our polyatomic oxyanions. These are the negatively charged polyatomic ions that end with oxygen. And when it comes to these polyatomic oxyanions, we can describe them as either being trioxides or tetraoxides. Let's focus on the trioxides first. Let's focus on the fact that it's have the letter t. If we look at this portion of the periodic table, we're gonna say that these 4 in blue represent possible trioxides, and they also form the letter t. Now the trioxides themselves, we say when their name ends with 8, they possess 3 oxygens. So again, use this to help you reinforce this Triooxides with t, when they end with 8, they have 3 oxygens, they form the letter t on the periodic table. So they all have 3 oxygens, so that's B O 3, C O 3, N O 3 and Si O 3. Then we have our tetraoxides. Tetra, some of you may know what that stands for, tetraoxides. Tetraoxides. When their name ends with 8, they possess 4 oxygens because tetra standing for 4. And those are represented by phosphorus and sulfur. So they would have 4 oxygens, so p o 4 and s o 4. Alright. We said oxyanion, so we talked about a negative charge, but we don't see it quite yet. Click on to the next video and let's take a look when we start incorporating charges with these trioxides and tetraoxides.
01:39
