Home > Organic Chemistry > Comparing and Determing SN1 or SN2 and E1 or E2 reactions

Why are carbocations positive?

Answer 1

Brooklyn Barber

Because that's how they were defined. Cations are positively-charged, so carbocations are positively-charged carbons.

Carbocation stability goes like this:

They form when a leaving group leaves, taking its bonding pair of electrons with it.
Assuming an ideal covalent bond, the to-be-formed carbocation would evenly share 1 electron with the rest of the molecule.

When the leaving group leaves, the carbon therefore has a net loss of 1 electron, giving the carbon in the carbocation a #+1# charge.

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Answer 2

Ryan Andrews

Carbocations are positive because they have lost an electron, leaving them with a positively charged carbon atom. This occurs when a carbon atom forms only three bonds, resulting in an electron deficiency and a positive charge.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.