S-Character Bond Angle Trend


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Amy Dinh 1A
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:23 am

S-Character Bond Angle Trend

Postby Amy Dinh 1A » Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:57 am

How come as the s-character of the hybrids increase, the bond angle between the two hybrid orbitals also increase?

Xinyi Zeng 4C
Posts: 63
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:18 am

Re: S-Character Bond Angle Trend

Postby Xinyi Zeng 4C » Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:31 pm

If I understood your question correctly, you are asking why the bond angle of sp3 is smaller than that of sp2 and than that of sp?
If this is the question, I feel that it is because they have different type of hybridization, which means that they have different regions of electron density and different number of hybrid orbitals, so they will have different VSEPR shape. That's why the bond angles are different.

Caitlin_Murphy_3C
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:23 am

Re: S-Character Bond Angle Trend

Postby Caitlin_Murphy_3C » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:19 pm

as the s-character of a hybrid increases, the bond angle increases because there are fewer regions of electron density. for example, in an sp hybrid, there are only two regions of electron density, so these two regions are more spread out and therefore have a wider bond angle than say, an sp2 hybrid where there are three regions of electron density. Hope this helps!

Katelyn Phan 2A
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:23 am

Re: S-Character Bond Angle Trend

Postby Katelyn Phan 2A » Sat Nov 24, 2018 10:51 am

With greater regions of electron density comes smaller bond angles.


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