Confused on how to draw cis-[Ni(H2O)4(NH3)2]Cl2 [closed]

Question

I got a question on my practice exam telling me to draw cis-diamminetetraaquanickel(II) chloride, but I'm not sure on how to place the two $\ce{Cl}$ atoms.

Answer 1

A structure of a coordination complex with properly assign wedged bonds for depicting stereochemical features should be be either fully enclosed in square brackets or denoted with an L-shaped brace on the top right corner with charge being superscripted.

Since here both chloride anions are not ligands and don't belong to coordination sphere, they should be placed outside. There are no strict rules for the exact placement, however, according to IUPAC recommendations on Graphical Representation Standards [1], there are several limitations such as distance between ions and its alignment. By taking these into account the following depiction would be appropriate:

If you are writing with $\mathrm\LaTeX,$ have a look at Counter ions and charge of a complex.

From [1, pp. 378–379]:

GR-5.7 Polyatomic ions

[…]
If it is important to depict atoms and bonds explicitly, the ion should be drawn in full without concern for the delocalized charges. That structure should then be enclosed in large square brackets, and again any charge should be reported as a superscript following the rightmost bracket. For single fragments, it is equally preferred to forgo the leftmost bracket and depict simply a “corner” at the top right of the diagram, again with the charge as a superscript following the corner. The full paired brackets should be used in any situation where there is a possibility that the charge may be incorrectly associated with an additional structure diagram to the left of the intended one.

From[1, pp. 384–385]

GR-7.3 Salts drawn in unspecified form

In addition to the styles discussed above, an alternative style depicts the ions in structural form, but without any implied association between the ions. This is the preferred form for mixed salts where there is more than one positively charged atom or more than one negatively charged atom, and where the author wishes to treat them separately. In this style, the largest ion(s) should be enclosed in brackets, to emphasize that there is no structural association between it (them) and the other ion(s). The selection of ions to bracket is performed solely based on size, and so the bracketed ion(s) may be positively or negatively charged. The bracketed ions are placed on the left, and the other ions are placed on the right.

The various ions should be clearly separated from each other, but not separated so widely as to seem wholly unrelated. A separation distance roughly equivalent to the structure’s average bond length is usually reasonable for most purposes.

When an ion appears more than once, it may be depicted a single time, with an additional numeral present to indicate the repeat count. If the repeated ion is represented by a molecular formula, the repeat count is placed to the left of the formula in regular-style (non-superscripted, non-subscripted text) and separated from the formula by a space.

References

1. Brecher, J. Graphical Representation Standards for Chemical Structure Diagrams (IUPAC Recommendations 2008). Pure and Applied Chemistry 2009, 80 (2), 277–410. https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200880020277.