Maxima Chem
What is the highest oxidation state that Oxygen can attain?
The answer is 2.
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1 solution
Shouldn't it be +6 ? We are talking about 'highest oxidation state' .
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Oxygen can only have a maximum of 2 bonds. Unlike sulfur, oxygen has no d orbitals. That means it can have at most 4 s p 3 orbitals. If oxygen had more than 2 bonds, it would not be able to fit all of the electrons in its orbitals.
But O cannot expand its octet
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What exactly do you mean by that ? Even if O gives all 6 electrons it still completes it's octet(the previous shell is still complete )
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@Raven Herd – You mean O F 6 exists, six fluorine atoms! the amount of interelectronic repulsion will completely destroy the molecule.
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@Tanishq Varshney – Why can't ?please explain .I have a superficial hold over chemistry.
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@Raven Herd – Even i am not good at chemistry, i completely agree with aakash khandelwal
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@Tanishq Varshney – But you can still explain what you know or why you ' completely agree with aakash khandelwal'?
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@Raven Herd – Both the oxygen and fluorine elements are very very electronegative, if oxygen loses all 6 electrons to fluorine, the molecule thus formed would be very very unstable(due to intense interelectronic repulsion)such that the molecule would break within a split second.
That 1 thing is enuf to explain all it meant
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O F 2