What is the oxidation number of a sulfide ion?

Sulfide has an oxidation number of -2. Sulfide is actually an anion of sulfur. This is actually sulfur in its lowest possible oxidation state which explains its very low oxidation number. There are a lot of chemists and scientists who can identify this immediately probably because of its bad odor. There are two types of sulfides namely inorganic sulfide and organic sulfide.

Inorganic sulfide can be considered very weak while organic sulfides are considered to be bonded stronger. Sulfide can be mixed in with other compounds so that it can be useful. For example, it can be mixed with sodium to make it a chemical that is used in factories.

Sulfide ion has an oxidation number of -2. This can be easily determined by the name and position of the ion. The –ide part of the name signifies that it is an anion and hence it must have a negative oxidation number. Moving to its positon, the sulfur atom is in group 16, it automatically gives us the valence number that also allows us to calculate the oxidation number. In this case, it is -2.

You can find the oxidation number of any ion using this method. It will allow you to find the valence electrons and then the actual charge on the ion.