RyanJ Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 Hi everyone! While browsing through a chemical database site I came upon an entry for nitrogen dioxide that showed the nitrogen having a positive charge: http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?cid=3609161&loc=ec_rcs Is this correct? Shouldn't this molecule actually be neutral? Have they confused it for something else? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 You are right, it should be neutral. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane_alien Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 unless it's a nitrous ion. in the nitrogen dioxide it should be shown with a resonant structure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mississippichem Posted November 27, 2010 Share Posted November 27, 2010 Nitrogen has a formal charge of +1 with an unpaired electron but one of the oxygens has a -1 so the molecule is net neutral for nitrogen dioxide. This goes for both of the main resonance forms. You could have seen a nitronium ion: [ce] NO_{2}^+[/ce] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanJ Posted November 29, 2010 Author Share Posted November 29, 2010 The site references nitrogen dioxide, both the name, formula and CAS number to that page - which was apparently an error. I'm told that they'll be trying to fix it asap. Thanks all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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