Talk:Polyatomic ion

Table

Please help with the format of this table!!!

I'm working on moving the data into a table, shown below. - fagan

Some commonly-occurring polyatomic ions and their charges are indicated below, ordered from most positive to most negative, and alphabetically for those with the same charge.

Name	Formula
ammonium	NH4+
acetate	CH3C(=O)O- also written as CH3COO- or C2H3O2-
Oxide	O4-2
Calcium	Ca4+2
Lead	Pb4+4
Barium	Ba4+2
Lithium	Li4+
Hydrogen	H4+

---

I think the table REALLY needs to be split into another column...look at all that space that can be used, its to long, need another table continuing...--69.111.8.235 01:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It appears the table would be better off without the expanded versions of acetate, as they can be accessed through acetate's page, there is no reason to list them. Also, it would be greatly beneficial if we listed the molar masses of the polyatomic ions in the table. Three columnar tables always look so pretty. Landfieldjc (talk) 02:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Misc

Merged a couple from list of polyatomic ions and that list was redirected here by another user at the same time (beat me to it :-) Removed merge notice. -Vsmith 19:14, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Should hydrogen carbonate and bicarbonate both have entries in the table? They are the same thing.... If I remember correctly, my chemistry teacher said that hydrogen carbonate is the "newer" name and we should use that one.... --Snaxe920 23:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Your correct, Hydrogen carbonate is indeed bicarbonate, but is needed for double reference negra(HCO^-₃)...--69.111.8.235 01:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

this makes the statement that the slufide family follows the naming system layed out in the first section, however this is not true. Sulfate, according to these naming guidelines would be SO3 with a negative one charge, but it is actually SO4 negative 2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.151.61.93 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 10 December 2006

The nomenclature rule isn't about the charge or number of oxygens on the most common ion, rather the relative number of oxygens in those ions with fewer or more than the most common. Vsmith 02:19, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Diatomic ion is not polyatomic?

The article currently says: [...] the term refers to small collections of atoms, 3 to perhaps 50 atoms, such as many metal complexes and oxyanions such as sulfate. in Greek, the prefix poly- means "many," which to a chemist means three or more atoms.

Is it not two or more atoms? Many of the ions in the table (like hydroxide which is also given as an initial example) have only two atoms. 217.116.235.64 18:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wording

Is this really a good choice of words?

Although most polyatomic ions are pussies, (all electrons are paired), some are radicals.

I think this could be cleaned up a bit. 192.103.41.201 23:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Listing all polyatomic ions may be unrealistic and possibly ill-advised

There are a lot of polyatomic species out there (most of coordination chemistry, 99.999% biomolecules). This list seems like the kind of good idea until you think about it. Also I notice that the list includes ions that are not real in the usual physical world such as chromite (CrO₂^-), hypophosphite (PO₂^-). I dont have any ideas other than kill the table or put lots of disclaimers on it. I guess one could say that the table does no harm, except to delude the reader into thinking that the number of ions is modest in number and that some species listed as ions dont exist outside of mass spectrometers.--Smokefoot (talk) 01:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to just (create and) link to a category where all polyatomic ions can be collected? That way, we don't have to keep maintaining a large unwieldy table. There's already Category:Oxycations, for example.—Tetracube (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Some entries are odd- e.g. carbonite. As a first step to enhancing this article I would suggest that the list is thinned down to cover just familiar examples, headed ""Examples of some polyatomic ions" and split (or separate list ) between cations and anions.--Axiosaurus (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll work on trimming it down. Thanks for the suggestion.—Tetracube (talk) 17:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature section

The nomenclature section seems to deal only with anions. Cations do not follow this pattern (there is no discussion of the -yl suffix for cations, for example); somebody should expand this article with that.—Tetracube (talk) 17:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Um....

"External cheese links"??? I think it's supposed to say "External links" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.117.78 (talk) 23:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomenclature

Regarding: First, think of the -ate ion as being the "base" name, I think that the use of the word "base" is confusing since when I first read this I thought that it was referring to "a base" as in acids and bases. I'm not sure what to suggest instead. Perhaps "root" or "nominal" instead of "base". Kennovation (talk) 00:50, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

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"Molecular ion" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Molecular ion. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 22#Molecular ion until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Mdewman6 (talk) 01:59, 22 June 2021 (UTC)