Question

NEED ANSWER FAST!!
WILL GIVE MEDAL
If every oxygen ion (combined with an aluminum ion) has a charge of -2, what must the charge of each aluminum ion be? How can you tell this? Also, what has to happen to an uncharged aluminum atom so that it will bond with oxygen?

Answer 1

@myininaya will you help me

Answer 2

@Abhisar will you help me

Answer 3

the charges should cancel out to 0. So if 1 oxygen ion combines with 1 aluminum ion and the oxygen ion starts with a -2 charge, then the aluminum ion should have a +2 charge. An uncharged aluminum ion would need to lose 2 electrons to get the +2 charge.

Answer 4

what is the electron configuration for aluminium? ;)

Answer 5

it is 1s^(2)3p^(1)
If it lose 2 electrons then we get 1s^(1)
Is this configuration stable?

Answer 6

no

Answer 7

Exactly. So we need to go higher.
Lets say aluminium lose all 3 electrons.
Then we get -2+3 = 1... well what if we try this instead:
\[\Large \sf Al _{2}O _{3}\]
does this work?

Answer 8

yes that is on the other part of my paper

Answer 9

But that is how aluminium would react with an oxygen ion.
Remember that aluminium always create a Al+3 iron

Answer 10

@Frostbite i dont get it

Answer 11

can you just give me the answers to the questions please

Answer 12

He did...

Answer 13

i dont get it

Answer 14

@Frostbite i dont get it

Answer 15

you understand that when the oxygen and aluminum ions combine, their charge becomes 0 correct?

Answer 16

um

Answer 17

ok, when ions combine, their charges cancel out.

Answer 18

yes

Answer 19

So if oxygen has a -2 charge, then you would think aluminum has a +2 charge so that when the two combine, their charges cancel out.

However, based on the electron configuration of aluminum, aluminum cannot have a +2 charge

Answer 20

aluminum's electron configuration : [Ne]2S^2 3P^1

if it lost 2 electrons (you must lose electrons to get a positive charge) to get a +2 charge, it would have a configuration of [Ne] 2S^1. This is not a stable conformation, so it loses another electron to reach a stable conformation, in this case [Ne].

That means it loses 3 electrons, so it has a charge of +3

Answer 21

I fast emit a mistake I did. I wrote a wrong electron configuration due to fast writing.
following configuration is correct \(\Large \sf [Ne]3s^{2}3p^{1}\)
My apologies to you and @jedi_trooper for interrupting.

Answer 22

If aluminum has a charge of +3 and oxygen has a charge of -2, then how would you combine the two ions to reach a charge of 0?

As Frostbite said, you would need 2 aluminum ions to combine with 3 oxygen ions. Al2O3.

multiply the charges to check: 2 aluminum ions with +3 charge give a total of +6. 3 oxygen ions with a -2 charge give a total of -6. +6 and -6 combine to give a total of 0.

Answer 23

So, in short, the charge of each aluminum ion must be +3.

You can tell this because aluminum and oxygen combine to form Al2O3.

Aluminum must lose 3 electrons for this to happen.