Why can't hydrogen be a central atom? [ENDORSED]

[RichardValdez1L]

I have a hunch its because of its number of electrons but can't quite understand why? Is it because it can't form more than a single bond ?

[Emily 1E]

Hydrogen generally can only formed one covalent bond, because of its single valence electron. Therefore, in molecules made up of 3 or more atoms, it would never be in the center because it can only bond with one other atom, as it can only share its singular electron in a covalent bond.

[Salena Chowdri 1I]

Hydrogen can't be the central atom because it can only form one bond, so it must generally be in the outer layer of atoms. When drawing a lewis structure, it's recommended for hydrogen atoms to be added in last.

[Bryan Jiang 1F]

In addition to only having one electron, hydrogen also only has one orbital, the 1s orbital. So once hydrogen is sharing electrons with another atom, this one orbital that hydrogen has will be used up for this sharing. Any additional atom that wants to share electrons with this hydrogen cannot do so since there is no guaranteed orbital available for this atom to share electrons with the hydrogen, as hydrogen has its one only orbital that is already being used for sharing with the first atom. So, hydrogen cannot be a central atom since it only has one orbital available for sharing electrons with only one other atom.

[Caroline Crotty 1D]

Since hydrogen only has one bond, it cannot form bonds with more then one other element.

[Jocelyn1B]

Hydrogen is a special case. It can only form one bond so it won't help putting it in the center. Hydrogen atoms are recommended to be at the sides.

[Tiffany Tufenkjian 1E]

Hydrogen only has a 1s orbital, so once it forms a bond with another atom, its single orbital is full.