Question

What is the formal charge of CO?

Answer 1

Hint: The formal charge of the atom in a polyatomic molecule is going to depend on the number of electrons gained from other atoms or donated to other atoms. The formal charge of the atom in the molecule will be positive or negative or neutral.

Complete answer: - In the question it is asked what the formal charge of CO is.
- The given molecule is carbon monoxide.
- From the Lewis structure of the carbon monoxide molecule we can find the formal charge of the carbon monoxide.
- The Lewis structure of carbon monoxide is as follows.
\[:C\equiv O:\]
- We know that carbon is tetravalent in nature and oxygen is divalent in nature.
- From the above Lewis structure we can say that carbon has a pair of electrons with three bonds with oxygen means carbon has a formal charge of 4-5 = -1.
- The oxygen formed a triple bond with carbon means oxygen has a positive charge on it.
- Therefore the net formal charge on the carbon monoxide = - 1 + 1 = 0.
- So the formal charge of carbon monoxide (CO) is zero.

Note: We can count the formal charge of an individual atom and formal charge of a molecule also. The formal charge is going to depend on the acceptance or donating capacity of the individual atoms in the molecule. The formal charge of ammonium ion ($NH_{4}^{+}$ ) is one.