Which of the following molecules has a central atom with
sp3 hybridization? (LO 8.4)
(a) PCl5 (b) OF2
(c) CO2 (d) SF4

Question

Which of the following molecules has a central atom with 
sp3 hybridization? (LO 8.4) 
(a) PCl5 (b) OF2 
(c) CO2 (d) SF4

Accepted Answer

Hello everyone in this video we're dealing with four different molecules and we're seeing which one has the central atom being sp two hybridized. So we can do this is by looking at or drawing out the lowest structure and just counting how many electron cause we have. So first we'll do NH three Alright, so first things first we're doing And is lewis. We have to calculate for the total number of valence electrons. So for nitrogen it's in group five a. So we have five valence electrons for hygiene. We have three atoms here. Each provide one valence electron. So that's equal to three. So five plus three then is equal to eight. So we have eight total valence electrons and NH three molecule. So nitrogen is going to be my central item connected to three hydrogen atoms. So each bond has two electrons. So we have only used six valence electrons. So remaining two valence electrons will just be a long pair. And nitrogen atom. So not counting the number of electron groups in our central atom which is nitrogen, we can go ahead and determine the hybridization. So we see here that we have three groups which is the bonding of the hydrogen and then we have one electron group from our lone pair. So that means that we have a total of four electron groups on our nitrogen which is meaning that we have a sp three hybridization for NH three and because we only want sp two. Our first answer choice is eliminated now for carbon dioxide which is CO2. So for carbon we have four advanced electrons. And then for auction Because we have two atoms. So each auction item will give us six valence electrons. So for carbon is in group for eight, that's why we have four electrons or valence electrons rather. And for auction it's in group 68. So we have six valence electrons each. So we're taking the product of two times six, which is 12. So four plus 12 is equal to 16 electrons, drawing out the lowest structure just go and keep in mind that carbon likes to have four bonds total and auction likes to have two bonds and two lone pairs. So have this double bond here. So that fulfills the carbons requirements or liking of having a total of four bonds. And then auction on each side with two long pairs that fulfilled the octet and what it prefers. So you see here for the carbon, our central atom, we have two electron groups. So we have two electron groups, meaning that we have an sp hybridization. So again sio two is eliminated. Next we go ahead and do B H three. So born has a total of three valence electrons. Then hydrogen has well we have three atoms of hydrogen. Each will give us one valence electron the three times one is three. So that gives us a sum then of six total valence electrons in our molecule. So we have a central item being boron connected to three hydrogen atoms. That's the lowest dot structure for bh three we see here for essential item boron, we have three electron groups, all being hydrogen, so we have three electron groups. This means that we have an sp two hybridization. So we did find our molecule with this sp two hybridized central atoms, so we don't need to go ahead and look further and determine the lewiS structure and hybridization of H 20. So we have a final answer being a statement or molecule C.

Which of the following molecules has a central atom with sp3 hybridization? (LO 8.4) (a) PCl5 (b) OF2 (c) CO2 (d) SF4

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Hybridization

Molecular Geometry

Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion (VSEPR) Theory