vsper structures

[Josephine Lu 4L]

what does it mean when a lone pair is in the axial or equitorial plane?

[Aaron Ang 4H]

When the electron is in the axial plane, it is vertical plane through the middle of the central atom while electrons on the equatorial plane are in the horizontal plane through the middle of the central atom

[May Xiao 1H]

axial is like when 2 lones pairs are furthest from each other (in 180degreee) For example in the square planar structure, the two lone pairs are above and below the "sqare planar" formed by 4 bonding atoms.

equatorial means it's in the same plane as some other bonding atoms. For example in the seesaw structure, the lone pair is in the planar with other 2 bonding atoms. The reason is that in this structure the only lone pair of e- will only interact with 2 bonding atoms (which are the atoms above and below the planar) so that only two bonds will be slightly bended because of the repulsion of lone pair e-.

[Nell Mitchell 1E]

The axial plane is the two electron densities that are 180 degrees from each other while the equatorial plane is 90 degrees from each of those densities and have varying degree separation from eachother depending on the number of electron densities. In the case of lone pairs being in those spots, a lone pair is more likely to be in the equatorial plane than the axial plane.