Resonance Hybrid

[Ziyi Meng 2K]

Can someone tell me what is a resonance hybrid? I remember from lecture the professor was drawing a hexagon and a circle inside the hexagon, what does this structure mean?

[sgarza]

I think it represents a more accurate structure for a molecule that experiences resonance. The resonance is represented by a circle in the resonance hybrid structure because it shows the equal sharing of electrons between the atoms, rather than with a traditional lewis structure, you need to draw multiple lewis structures in order to see a more clear picture of the sharing of electrons.

[loganchun]

A resonance hybrid is a better representation of a structures that have delocalized bonds. For instance, in Benzene (C6H6), instead of having 3 double bonds and 3 single bonds alternating in the structure, the circle shows that all of the bonds are of equal length and energy.

[Kassidy Patron 1L]

Hi! From the lecture, resonance basically means different possible arrangements of electrons in a chemical structure. The word hybrid usually means a mixture of things. Therefore, a resonance hybrid is a mixture of the different possible arrangements in a chemical structure.

The hexagon drawn during lecture represented the 6 carbon atoms in benzene being bonded together. The double bonds could be in different locations, as long as it's alternated, so a circle was drawn inside the hexagon to demonstrate that the double bonds could be anywhere. Furthermore, when we draw resonance structures, the molecule usually isn't one or the other. It's actually a mix/"blend"/average of the different possible structures we draw. So the circle basically demonstrates that the carbon atoms are bonded and the electron arrangement is delocalized.

[Alekhya_Pantula_2E]

Resonance hybrid is the blending of resonance structures and is essentially the average of two or more structural formulas.

[Rebekah Han 2K]

So to clarify, we use resonance hybrids to represent all the different ways we could form a molecule into one neat structure?