Bonds

[Tiffany Cao 1D]

How do we know when to create a double or triple bond? Would it be okay to just leave a Lewis structure consisting of single bonded elements if all elements had an octet?

[Swetha Sundaram 1E]

Some atoms are stronger and essentially more stable if you can make it a double or triple bond.

[Sara Varadharajulu]

Keep in mind the number of valence electrons. If your atoms needs a lot more valence electrons to complete its octet, most likely you will be using double or even triple bonds. Atoms like Cl with almost an octet will only need single bonds. It is fine to use just single bonds. Some lewis structure configurations are better than others, so if you can decrease formal charge on the individual atoms and make the structure more stable by increasing the number of bonds, you should.

[Girija_3E]

Just adding on, I always check the formal charges of the atoms after I've made the Lewis structure. If you are able to get the formal charge of atoms to be zero by changing some of the bonds, then that's preferable!

[Diane Bui 2J]

Adding on, the elements in the third row (and above) of the periodic table are able to hold more than an octet as a central atom in a Lewis Structure due to their available d (and f) orbitals.