Question

Determine the charge on the transition metal cation in the following compounds.SnCl2

Answer 1

We must remember that all molecules have zero net charge. To solve this question lets take a look at the periodic table.

We can see that Chlorine belongs to the column 17. That means its charge is negative one, i.e., -1. We can write:

`Cl^(-1)`

We also can see that Tin is in 14th column but that doesn't tell us much about it electric charge.

To solve this we must use the "fence trick".

Since the molecule has zero net charge, that means the sum of all charges must be zero. Using the "fence trick" we have to cross the numbers that appear on the molecule. We can write:

`\text{SnCl}^{_{}}_2=Sn^(+2)+2Cl^(-1)_{}`

So the charge of the transition metal is:

`Sn^(+2)`