Question

Name the most stable ion and explain why.

Answer 1

Ions:

• Ions may be an element, a molecule, or a chemical compound with a definite amount of charge.
• In other words, an ion is a chemically charged species.
• An ion may either be positively or negatively charged.

Stability of an ion:

• The stability of an ion depends upon many factors such as electronic configuration, number of bonds, electronegativity of the bonded atom, structure of the ion, aromaticity, resonance, hyperconjugation, etc.
• The most stable ion is the tertiary carbonium ion because of the presence of 9 $\alpha$- hydrogens.
• Hyperconjugation is a dominating factor when there are than 6 $\alpha$- hydrogens.

• This makes this ion the most stable ion.