The formal charge of an atom in a molecule is the charge that would reside on the atom if all of the bonding electrons were shared equally. We can calculate an atom's formal charge using the equation FC = VE - [LPE - ½(BE)], where VE = the number of valence electrons on the free atom, LPE = the number of lone pair electrons on the atom in the molecule, and BE = the number of bonding (shared) elect
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