How Do I Determine Valence Electrons for Inner Transitional Metals?

[leaf345]

For the purpose of drawing dot structures and determining VSEPR shape, how do I figure out the number of valence electrons for inner transitional metals? Do I only count the electrons in the highest p and s orbitals, or do I also count the electrons in d,f,etc. orbitals? Clarification on this would be appreciated!

 

[NotMrX]

For the purpose of drawing dot structures and determining VSEPR shape, how do I figure out the number of valence electrons for inner transitional metals? Do I only count the electrons in the highest p and s orbitals, or do I also count the electrons in d,f,etc. orbitals? Clarification on this would be appreciated!

There are different ways of doing this. However valence electrons are usefull in lewis structures because they are reactive. The reactive electrons for transition metals are the s orbitals and d orbitals. The lewis structures are just a model and most the time they are not used for d orbitals. At that point people ussually use molecular orbital theory.

I hope that helped.