The orbital diagram that follows presents the final step in the formation of hybrid orbitals by a silicon atom. (a) Which of the following best describes what took place before the step pictured in the diagram: (i) Two 3p electrons became unpaired, (ii) An electron was promoted from the 2p orbital to the 3s orbital, or (iii) An electron was promoted from the 3s orbital to the 3p orbital?

Video transcript

Hello everyone today. We have the following problem. The last step in the formation of the hybrid orbital of a carbon atom is illustrated in the orbital diagram below, which of the following statements most accurately sums up what happened prior to the last step depicted in the diagram. And so we have this molecular orbital theory or molecular orbital diagram here. And so as we can see here, we see that one electron from the S orbital, so an electron from s orbital was promoted into a P orbital. So it's almost if this electron here was promoted into this orbital here, and this is actually representative of an sp two hybrid orbital. So an sp two hybrid orbital has one S orbital and two P orbital's. And so therefore that would make our answer. And your choice be the promotion of an electron into the two P atomic orbital from the S orbital. And with that we have our answer. I hope this helped. And until next time.