XeO3 Lewis Structure - How to Draw the Lewis Structure for XeO3

This one is a bit tough since the first Lewis structure you generate will seem like the right one. But, check the formal charges -- it's not the best Lewis structure for XeO3. A step-by-step explanation of how to draw the XeO3 Lewis Structure. For the XeO3 Lewis structure we first count the valence electrons for the XeO3 molecule using the periodic table. Once we know how many valence electrons there are in XeO3 we can distribute them around the central atom and attempt to fill the outer shells of each atom. When we are done adding valence electrons we check each atom to see if it has an octet (full outer shell). We also need to check to make sure we only used the number of available valence electrons we calculated earlier. For the Lewis structure for XeO3 you have to take formal charges into account to find the best Lewis structure for the molecule. Remember that Xenon can have more than 8 valence electrons. Get more chemistry help at http://www.thegeoexchange.org/chemistry