Hydrogen in Lewis Structures

[LavieTran2B]

Hello peers,

Dr. Lavelle mentioned that hydrogen is never the central atom when drawing Lewis Structures. However, I am confused as to what the reasoning behind that is. Thanks.

[Devyn Chun 3I]

I think this has to do with the fact that hydrogen only has one electron and can only make one single bond with another atom. It is more likely for molecules with multiple bonds to be the central atom because it has more extensions. It would look lopsided to have hydrogen be in the center in a molecule with more bonds.

[Ella Bogomilsky 2B]

Hi,
Hydrogen is never in the middle of the Lewis structure because it has the lowest ionization energy. Hope this helps!

[Gianna Sciole 2F]

Since hydrogen only has one electron, it can only make one single bond. because of this, molecules usually involve multiple hydrogen atoms because they cannot be the central atom.

[Anton Truskovsky 2K]

Basically, the central atom in the Lewis Structure is going to be the atom with the lowest ionization energy (and least electronegative). However, because Hydrogen can only make 1 bond, it cannot be the central atom. One little lifehack to determining a central atom in a Lewis Structure is that it's usually the atom with the lowest subscript in the molecular formula.

[Santiago Chang 2K]

Because hydrogen can only make one bond, it makes it difficult to place it in the center of the lewis structure. Elements that can form multiple bonds are better because the molecule can extend outwards from it more clearly. Hope this helps!

[Santiago Chang 2K]

Because hydrogen can only make one bond, it makes it difficult to place it in the center of the lewis structure. Elements that can form multiple bonds are better because the molecule can extend outwards from it more clearly. Hope this helps!

[Jessica Arcos 2H]

We don't put hydrogen in the middle because it can only have one bond so it would be easier to just put the elements with multiple bonds in the middle.

[Alison King 3L]

Hydrogen doesn't follow the octet rule since it only has one electron in the 1s subshell. An atom that can form more than one bond will likely be in the middle compared to hydrogen.

[Audrey Banzali-Marks 1A]

Hydrogen has the lowest ionization energy, so at first, it would make sense to put it as the central atom of a molecule by the convention that the atom with the lowest ionization energy is in the center. However, this isn't the case because H only has 1 electron and therefore can only make 1 bond to get its full 1s shell. As a result, you can't have hydrogen as the central atom because it cannot bond and link multiple atoms at once.