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andyrk
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Why does the hydroxide ion have a negative charge? , i.e OH-?
The simplest way for explaining this is this:andyrk said:Why does the hydroxide ion have a negative charge? , i.e OH-?
andyrk said:Why does the hydroxide ion have a negative charge? , i.e OH-?
Enigman said:Count the number of protons and number of electron in the ion.
With reference to what Drdu said: ions are charged, radicals are neutral.
chemistry sometimes overcomplicates things to simplify them...
Yanick said:Radicals need not always be neutral.
See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2644638/
Also you can have stuff like the superoxide anion which is a anion radical. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoxide
Plenty of examples around, these are just off the top of my head.
The negative charge of OH- is due to the presence of one extra electron on the molecule. This extra electron is acquired when a hydrogen atom is removed from a water molecule (H2O), leaving behind a hydroxide ion (OH-). This extra electron gives the molecule a negative charge.
OH- is a negatively charged ion, also known as an anion, because it has more electrons than protons. This imbalance in the number of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons results in a net negative charge for the ion.
OH- gains its negative charge through a process called dissociation. In water, a small percentage of water molecules will naturally split into H+ ions and OH- ions. This is due to the polarity of the water molecule and the attraction between the slightly positive hydrogen atom and the slightly negative oxygen atom. The OH- ion gains its negative charge from the extra electron that was originally part of the water molecule.
OH- is considered a base because it is capable of accepting a proton (H+) from an acid, thereby neutralizing the acid. This is due to the presence of a lone pair of electrons on the oxygen atom, which can readily bond with a proton. When OH- accepts a proton, it forms water (H2O) and the negative charge is neutralized.
No, OH- cannot exist without a negative charge. The negative charge is an essential part of the molecule's structure and is responsible for its chemical properties. Removing the extra electron would result in a different molecule, such as water (H2O) or hydroxyl radical (OH), which have different properties and reactivity.