Help with Lewis electron dot structures | Chlorine Perchlorate Cl2O4

A simple procedure for writing Lewis dot structures was given in a previous post entitled “Lewis Structures and the Octet Rule”.

Several worked examples relevant to this procedure were given in previous posts please see the Sitemap - Table of Contents (Lewis Electron Dot Structures).

Let us consider the case of of chlorine perchlorate Cl₂O₄ ( Cl(O)₃OCl)

Step 1:  Connect the atoms with single bonds

Fig. 1 : Connect the atoms of chlorine perchlorate with single bonds.

  

Step 2: Calculate the # of electrons in π bonds (multiple bonds) using  formula (1): 

Where n in this case is 6 since Cl₂O₄  consists of six atoms.

Where V = (6 + 7 + 6 * 2 + 6 + 7) = 38 

Therefore, P = 6n + 2 – V = 6 * 6 + 2 – 38 = 0     So  there are no  π electrons in Cl₂O₄.

Step 3 & 4: The Lewis structures for Cl₂O₄ are derived below:

Fig. 2 : Plausible Lewis structure of chlorine perchlorate.