Skip to main content

Predicting Monatomic Ion Charge from Group Number

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Main-group metals tend to lose electrons to match the nearest preceding noble gas; nonmetals gain electrons to match the nearest following one.

Show

Calcium, group 2, loses two electrons to form Ca2+; bromine, group 17, gains one to form Br−, each matching a noble gas.

Watch for

This trend weakens toward the table's center, where transition metals often form charges the pattern cannot predict.