4.06 Covalent Naming and Formula Writing

When you write formulas for ionic compounds, it was always important to balance charges. But covalent compounds do not involve charges. Electrons are being shared between nonmetal atoms, and there may be dozens of different ways that two elements (like N and O for example) can combine: NO, N₂O, NO₂, N₂O₄... Because of this, Greek prefixes (mono-, di-, tri-...) are used to specify the number of each type of atom present in a given molecule. That makes covalent naming and formula writng extremely easy!

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