Question

I'm trying to remember common polyatomic ions for chemistry test and noticed that some that end with "ate" like nitrate, chlorate, carbonate have O3 but others like chromate, phosphate, sulfate have O4. How do they get those numbers?is there an easy way to calculate if it's O3 or O4 ?

Answer 1

oh gosh thats a hard one I dont know how to explain it but -ate is used for the most common oxyanion of an element.

I really don't know how to explain what you are looking for I'll try and think about it for a couple of minutes and answer you back with a better answer