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Simple Method for writing Lewis Structures for bromate BrO3- #24

A simple procedure for writing Lewis structures is given in a previous article entitled “Lewis Structures and the Octet Rule”. Relevant worked examples were given in the following articles: Examples #1, #2, #3 , #4, #5, #6,  #7#8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14 #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21 , #22 and  #23.


Let us consider the case of  BrO3-. Bromates are formed by many different ways in municipal drinking water, The most common is the reaction of Br- with ozone:


                                                           Br+ O3 →   BrO3-
In waters containing bromide (Br-), such as those found in coastal regions subject to salt water intrusion, a disinfection by-product of the ozonation treatment of the water is the bromate ion BrO3-.
 The bromate ion is very carcinogenic with an estimated lifetime cancer risk 1:10000 for a concentration of 5 ppb. Several methods are used for the determination of bromate in drinking waters including an LC-ICP-MS method.
 
Step 1: Connect the atoms with single bonds. The central atom is the bromine atom.


Step 2: Calculate the # of electrons in π bonds (multiple bonds) using formula (1)


Where n in this case is 4 since BrO3- consists of four atoms.
Where V = (7 + 6 + 6 + 6 ) – (-1) = 26  
Therefore, P = 6n + 2 – V = 6 *4 + 2 – 26 = 0     So, there are no π electrons in BrO3- and the structure in Step 1 is the Lewis structure. However, let us see the charge on the atoms.


Step 3 & 4: The Lewis structure for BrO3-  including charge is as follows:

Lewis structures for BrO3- / Easy method for drawing Lewis structures
Figure 1: Lewis structures for BrO3- . Structure 3 has the most reasonable distribution of formal charges.

2 comments:

  1. I thought I got it with the formula P=6n+2-V, and now I learn that it doesn't work always. How cruel!
    But, seriously, thank you for all the posts on Lewis Structures, they helped me a lot!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This was really helpful to students thanks a lot >|<

    ReplyDelete