Question

What does the subscript 2 indicate in the compound mgcl2?

Answer 1

The answer is A I believe, the subscript 2 indicates that there are two magnesium ions for each ion of chlorine. the chloride ion is twice the size of the magnesium ion. magnesium and chlorine form a double covalent bond. there are two chloride ions for each magnesium ion.

Answer 2

Answer: Option (b) is the correct answer.

Explanation:

It is known that when we write a chemical formula then the subscript present in it represents the number of atoms of an element are participating in the chemical bonding.

For example, as the given compound is $MgCl_{2}$.

So here, no subscript is present on magnesium atom which means that its subscript is 1 and chlorine atom has a subscript 2 which means that there are 2 atoms of chlorine are present in $MgCl_{2}$.

Therefore, we can conclude that the subscript 2 indicate in the compound $MgCl_{2}$ that there are 2 chloride ions for each magnesium ion.