About oxygen, I'm aware that it has 2 pairs of unshared electrons surrounding it when it is double bonded to something. I get that. But what I don't get is that if it's single bonded to something (like OH), it has 3 unshared pairs surrounding it plus the bond to H. Oxygen has 6 valence electrons to begin with and if it makes a single bond, one electron will be gained due to the covalent bond it just made for a total of seven. This would mean you need to have 2 unshared pairs, a standalone electron, and one bond. So why doesn't the lewis structure show that?

Question

aaronq · Answer

in OH there is an extra electron. OH^-   the negative charge is an electron.

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