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Author Topic: I'm confused-electron dot notation  (Read 100 times)

reDEEMed

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I'm confused-electron dot notation
« on: June 19, 2011, 04:19:06 PM »
At salat's recommendation I have been reading 'Organic Chemistry as a Second Language. The bond-line drawings are easy enough to understand, but now the problems are using dot notation to find whether the molecule has a formal charge. Up until this point I thought I thought that an atom that did not have all it's bonds met it would have a charge, obviously this is not what the author means.

Here's the issue I'm having right now. Below is a screenshot from the book that shows where I'm stuck. The author says 'Nitrogen is in the fifth column of periodic table so it should have five electrons.' This confuses me because I've looked at three periodic tables so far and the best I can tell, counting from the right, it's in the fourth column. In none of these tables do I see a five. I know that nitrogen wants to make 3 bonds. Obviously what I think isn't working here. I do understand what the author is getting at and if I knew what I was doing wrong in reading the info in the table I could come up with the right answer. Can some one throw me a bone to help me see this the right way? I apologize for such a simple question. If you can guys can put up with me just a while longer I'll have better questions in the future  ::)

"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
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xxxxx

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2011, 06:18:56 PM »
The 8th group the noble gases have 8 electrons in their outer shells. Therefore the 7th group is missing one leaving 7 electrons, The 6th group is missing 2 leaving 6 electrons. Therefore nitrogren in the 5th group is missing 3 electrons leaving 5 electrions in its outer shell. For the most part you can disregard the noble gases for organic chemistry.

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #2 on: June 19, 2011, 07:27:44 PM »
That makes even less sense, if I'm looking for the fifth column. Nitrogen is on the fourth column from the right, how does that equal five? I totally understand that these elements want 8 electrons and if it has 5 then it wants three more, hence it's willingness to bond. But, I'm not seeing how that is the fifth column. Every chart I look at it's the fourth and if I disregard the first column, the noble gases, it's only the third. That's my main confusion here, on what chart is nitrogen in the fifth column? The only 5 I see under nitrogen is in one of it's oxidation states. The book makes it sound so simple, fifth column, five electrons. But, my charts aren't written that way.

Sorry, I'm missing something fundamental here, I know it. Gotta love teaching yourself at home.
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

xxxxx

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #3 on: June 19, 2011, 07:47:30 PM »
You have to start counting the elements from the left hand side of the table! The 1st column which contains Li/Lithium has elements with 1 electron in their outer shell.

This continues across the table with Be, B, C and N having 2,3,4 and 5 electrons in their outer shells repectivly. You should ignore the transition metal elements as they don't always follow these rules.

Hope that helps!

Balkan Bonehead

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2011, 10:58:11 PM »
wat

Nitrogen is in period V of the elements. Periodic tables are ordered from left to right in order of filling outer electron shells. Period I elements have 1 out of 8 electrons in their octet, and period VIII (noble gases) have 8 out of 8. Nitrogen, being period V, obviously has 5 of 8 octet electrons.

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2011, 11:59:40 PM »
Period five, not column five, like that book says. Counting from the left it's the 15th column. I have watched two videos on how to interpret the periodic table and read several articles about it online and not one of them tell me why he calls the 15th column the 5th. Obviously he meant period, as you said ElR. You can see from the screenshot he says column and he repeats that several times. All I know is I have a headache now and looking back at my table I have here, there is no mention of a five anywhere near Nitrogen.
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

Tsathoggua

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2011, 12:24:15 PM »
Got a link to the book by any chance? could do with a refresher course myself.
Nomen mihi Legio est, quia multi sumus

I'm hyperbolic, hypergolic, viral, chiral. So motherfucking twisted my laevo is on the right side.

dream0n

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2011, 04:13:37 PM »
/torrent/4588723/Organic_Chemistry_as_a_Second_Language_(Klein)
via TPB [Edit] For tracker, use the udp openbittorent one.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2011, 04:38:35 PM by dream0n »
off to bigger and better things - don't worry I will visit from time to time

Tsathoggua

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2011, 05:47:25 PM »
Thanks dream0n. I got a PM from somebody with a direct link though. I'll see if its an online book type of thing first, and if not, then DL from TPB. TPB kicks arse, I like their attitude, and the way that when harassed by the powers that bee, the response is pretty much doing a whole load more of whatever they are being accused of, just to stick two fingers up at the annoying party.

Just DL'ed the primal hunt expansion pack for alien vs predator 2...and been busy playing warcraft III (plus expansion pack) and diablo II.
Nomen mihi Legio est, quia multi sumus

I'm hyperbolic, hypergolic, viral, chiral. So motherfucking twisted my laevo is on the right side.

akcom

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2011, 07:37:42 PM »
dream0n:
Having this up on the wall is a nice reference: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/chemtoe.pdf
As you can see, nitrogen is in the fifth column.  So it has 5 electrons in its outer shell.  That means it wants 3 more to be in stable configuration.

edit: ah, sorry now I see where your confusion lies.  Forget counting columns, lets just consider how to count how many electrons a neutral nitrogen has in its valence shell.  Start off simple:  Hydrogen has 1.  Helium has 2.  How many electrons does Li have in its valence?  Only 1.  It has a filled 1s orbital (remember, 2 electrons fill an s orbital).  So the next electron we add goes into a higher energy orbital: the 2s orbital.  Be has 2 in its outer shell (a filled 2s orbital).  Now what about boron?  Boron has three electrons in its outer shell: 2 in a 2s orbital and 1 in a 2p orbital.  So now you should be able to tell me how many electrons Nitrogen has in its outer shell, regardless of the column.

Notice that for the first three rows, there is a "gap" in the middle.  You do not count the elements in this gap when determining what column B, C, N, Al, Si, P etc are in.  Why does this gap exist?  And for that matter, why is the gap even larger for the first row (H and He)?  This is because H and He only have electrons in their 1s orbitals.  There is no 1p orbital so the next electron gets added into a 2s orbital. All of the elements in the first three rows do not have d orbitals.

H has one electron (1s1) and He has two electrons (1s2).  Now what about Boron?  Boron is 1s22s22p1
« Last Edit: June 20, 2011, 07:48:34 PM by akcom »

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2011, 10:50:11 PM »
You should break that link, shouldn't you? Especially to a dot guv lol
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

akcom

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2011, 10:56:52 PM »
we use a link anonymizer here so its not an issue.

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #12 on: June 20, 2011, 10:57:36 PM »
But just looking at a chart, how would I know that Boron has 3 electrons in it's outer shell? Looking at the table you linked it does have the 3A above that column, so it's easy (now) to see that it has 3. But is there another way I could just know how many electrons are in each element's outer shell besides rote memorization?
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #13 on: June 20, 2011, 11:03:22 PM »
Quote from: akcom on June 20, 2011, 10:56:52 PM
we use a link anonymizer here so its not an issue.
Ahh
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

lugh

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #14 on: June 20, 2011, 11:38:18 PM »
This website has accurate information as to the elements's electron(s) and shell configuration:

h**p://www.chemistry.patent-invent.com/chemistry/electron_configuration.html

 8)
Chemistry is our Covalent Bond

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #15 on: June 20, 2011, 11:51:47 PM »
That's a pretty swell chart :D
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

akcom

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2011, 12:10:16 AM »
reDEEMed: you need to learn about electron orbitals if you want to know how many electrons are in the valence without rote memorization.

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2011, 12:42:52 AM »
Yeah, I'm getting to that. There's a lot to learn and I'm only ~1 year into it, and most of that time has by no means been 'hard at it'. I am taking it seriously now, though. One drawback to self study is the lack of structure. I'm hoping that once I can add some hands on I'll add some structure, by default.

Anything help you guys give me is really appreciated, and I mean that.
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna

Balkan Bonehead

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #18 on: June 21, 2011, 03:53:32 AM »
I don't really recommend these "chemistry for dummies" type books. We're not dummies here (I hope). You should get yourself a solid undergraduate text.

Here's a good one, 'Chemistry', by Chang. It's what I used as an undergrad. It gives a fundamental yet rigorous treatment of chemistry principles: http://rapidlibrary.com/download_file_i.php?file=28752872&desc=Chang.part2+.rar

Contrary to what a lot of "ghetto chemists" may say, garnering a solid theoretical background is crucial to succeeding in applied organic chemistry: the theory of acids and bases, reaction kinetics, bond theory, electron configurations, etc. All these are important.

reDEEMed

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Re: I'm confused-electron dot notation
« Reply #19 on: June 21, 2011, 10:35:04 AM »
I'm very much interested in theory. If my goal was just to 'cook' some drugs, I think I could have already done that.

Edit:Your file was 404. for me.

I have a shitload of text books that I torrented. I already tossed the dummie book, it sucked big time.

Edit#2: I have that book already. I guess it was in one of the large chemistry torrents. I'm still looking for cdx files that I can use for study. No luck torrenting those yet. Thanks for bringing my attention to it.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2011, 10:52:15 AM by reDEEMed »
"Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."
— Terence McKenna
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