CO lewis structure
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CO lewis structure
When drawing the lewis structure for CO, creating a double bond between C and O makes the formal charges on both atoms 0, but doesnt satisfy the octet rule, but triple bonding C and O (which appears to be the correct lewis structure) makes formal charges nonzero. I thought that formal charge was the main way to tell if a lewis structure is optimal, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. Is octet rule more important than formal charge?
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Re: CO lewis structure
Yes. The octet rule must be first fulfilled before considering the formal charge.
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Re: CO lewis structure
Though formal charge does tell if the structure is optimal, this is only the case after the octet rule is fulfilled. If a double bond is used, after fulfilling the octet rule, there would be 12 electrons rather than the 10 needed. So, the electrons would not match and the Lewis Structure would not be correct.
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Re: CO lewis structure
As previously mentioned, the octet must be complete before considering formal charge
Re: CO lewis structure
The octet rule must always be applied before looking at the formal charge. Also, the double bonded CO would not have a formal charge of 0 for the carbon atom. While the triple bond leaves a negative charge on one atom and a plus 1 charge on the other so they end up cancelling out.
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