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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: reed on February 23, 2009, 02:53:32 PM

Title: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: reed on February 23, 2009, 02:53:32 PM

Why can't an anion like chlorate exist on it's own? What would happen if you were to somehow isolate the chlorate anion from a compound? Would it just be ClO4 and somehow lose an electron, or would it dissolve into Cl and O?


Thanks!

Title: Re: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: nj_bartel on February 23, 2009, 06:06:57 PM

If you were to take a gram of protons and a gram of electrons and separate them on the opposite ends of the earth, there would be something like 12 tons of attractive force between them.  Electrostatic attraction is too large to isolate a charge.

Title: Re: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: reed on February 23, 2009, 06:32:04 PM

So Ions cannot exist on their own. And all compounds must be electrically neutral...

Why is it that the chlorine in salt water doesn't behave in the same way chlorine does? Does this have to do with missing electrons?

Title: Re: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: nj_bartel on February 23, 2009, 07:02:00 PM

I'm not sure what you mean.  Are you comparing chlorine gas and the ion chloride?

Title: Re: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: reed on February 23, 2009, 08:59:51 PM

Yes.

Title: Re: Why can't anions or cations exist by themselves?
Post by: nj_bartel on February 23, 2009, 10:16:35 PM

Chlorine can form an ionic bond with sodium to form NaCl (which is essentially Na⁺ and Cl^- adjacent to one another in a crystalline manner).  When you put NaCl in water, the Na⁺ is surrounded by the electrons from the oxygen in water and the Cl^- is surrounded by the hyrodgens of water.