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Can someone explain the oxidation and reduction?

April 26, 2017Chemistry explain Mathematics oxidation reduction

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Can someone explain the oxidation and reduction?

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So in most redox questions like this one, oxygens in a complex are assumed to have a 2- charge (or oxidation state), while ionic hydrogens have 1+. For this problem, for (MnO4)-, the Mn has a +7 oxidation state because there are 4 oxygens with an oxidation state of 2- on each of them, but the overall charge of the complex is 1-, so to counteract the 8- charge from the 4 oxygens, the Mn must be at an oxidation state of 7+ to make the overall charge 1-. For elemental forms of atoms (ie. Cl2, O2, etc), the oxidation state is always 0.