What is the oxidation state of Gold? How is this determined?

1 Answer
anor277
Jun 29, 2017

Well #"oxidation state"# is the.......

Explanation:

.....charge left on the central atom, when all the bonding pairs of electrons are broken, with the charge, the electrons, assigned to the most electronegative atom.

For details see this older answer.....

As to elemental gold, this has an oxidation state of BIG FAT ZERO, because it has neither accepted nor donated electrons. Compounds and complexes of #Au^(-I)# #Au^0#, #Au^(+I)#, #Au^(+II)#, #Au^(+III)#, and #Au^(+V)# are known. #Au^(+I)#, and #Au^(+III)# are the common oxidation states in gold chemistry.

For #AuCl_3#, and #HAuCl_4#, what are the oxidation states?

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