Oxidation state assignment is a bookkeeping convention that treats bonds as fully ionic, assigning shared electrons to the more electronegative atom to compute a hypothetical charge on each atom. In hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), a peroxide linkage, oxygen bonds directly to another oxygen of equal electronegativity rather than to a second hydrogen, so each oxygen gains only one electron instead of two and takes an oxidation state of −1 rather than the more typical −2 seen in water; hydrogen, being less electronegative, is assigned +1 in both compounds. This falls within inorganic/general chemistry's redox and electronegativity framework, where oxidation states must sum to the molecule's overall charge (here, 0) and gaining electrons always lowers (reduces) an atom's oxidation state, never raises it.
Oxidation state assignment is a bookkeeping convention that treats bonds as fully ionic, assigning shared electrons to the more electronegative atom to compute a hypothetical charge on each atom. In …