How do ionic compounds balance?
It’s a little hard to tell how much chemistry you’ve actually learned, but for one thing, Al2O3 is not very ionic. Judging from your concern about atom count, you’re probably not in a position to be making judgments about bond types. Aluminum oxide is not an ionic compound. Take a look at aluminum oxide. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co… You will see that there is a network of aluminum and oxygen atoms which are linked by polar covalent bonds. Al-O bonds are 57% ionic. The ratio of aluminum to oxygen atoms in the network is based on the number of valence electrons that aluminum can share, and how many electrons oxygen can share. Oxygen can only share two electrons, and aluminum can share three. Therefore, the ratio of aluminum to oxygen is 2:3. =========== Follow up ============ An answerer suggests … “Oxygen has an ionic charge of -2, and Aluminum has an ionic charge of +3.”
