Question

How many sodium (Na) and oxygen (O) atoms are needed to form the ionic compound sodium oxide?There needs to be 1 Na atom and 2 O atoms to form Na2OThere needs to be 2 Na atoms and 2 O atoms to form Na2OThere needs to be 1 Na atom and 1 O atom to form Na2OThere needs to be 2 Na atoms and 1 O atom to form Na2O

Answer 1

There needs to be 2 Na atoms and 1 O atom to form Na2O.

Step-by-step explanation:

If you go to see the periodic table to review the oxidation states of elements, you can see that Na only has +1 as oxidation state, and O only has -2 as oxidation state.

The algebraic sum of these oxidation states in a neutral compound (not ions) must be zero, so let's apply the following technique to form the compound:

So the compound would be Na2O, so we need 2 atoms of Na, and 1 atom of O.

The answer would be: There needs to be 2 Na atoms and 1 O atom to form Na2O.