What is the Bohr electron configuration of Oxygen? And further O2- ?

In order to assign O's e- configuration we need to find it on the periodic table. We can see it is on the 2nd period and in group 6 (also sometimes called 16). This means it fills 2 shells and has 6 valence e-s (e-s in the outer shell). The first shell can accommodate 2 e-s and the 2nd is the valence shell which we know must take 6 (although it can take up to 8 e-s). Hence the electron configuration is 2,6.O2- is an Oxygen atom which 2 more electrons. This can be confusing as minus normally means less, but electrons are negatively charged so having 2 of them would give a total charge of 2- (2 x -1). All elements start off neutral so if we give 2 electrons to Oxygen its new charge is therefore 2-. Now we have sorted that we simply add 2 electrons to the previous configuration giving 2,8. A quick tip is that ions almost always have a complete outer shell e.g. 2 or 2,8 or 2,8,8. (e- is shorthand for electron)

HG

Related Chemistry GCSE answers

All answers ▸

What and where are alkali metals in periodic table? Explain reactivity trends.


What are the relative charges of the proton, neutron and electron?


Explain what is meant by dynamic equilibrium. (2)


Explain briefly the separation technique of fractional distillation, with reference to a particular example.