## s-character and bond angle, question 2F15 7th edition

$sp, sp^{2}, sp^{3}, dsp^{3}, d^{2}sp^{3}$

Amy Lefley 1J
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:15 am

### s-character and bond angle, question 2F15 7th edition

Question 2F15 in the 7th edition asks: do you expect the bond angle between two hybrid orbitals to increase or decrease as the s-character of the hybrids is increased? The answer is: as the s-character of hybrid orbital increases, the bond angle increases. I do not know how to approach this question. I read in a previous chem community that the more s-character a bond has, the stronger and shorter the bond is. I also am struggling to understand this and would appreciate help!

juliasloan_4g
Posts: 67
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:28 am

### Re: s-character and bond angle, question 2F15 7th edition

This question also states that the bond angle for sp3 is 109.5 and bond angle for sp2 is 120. You can think of it as sp3 being 25 percent s characteristics and 75 percent p characteristics (1:3 ratio), and for sp2 this would be 33.3 percent s characteristic and 66.6 percent p characteristic (1:2 ratio). Once you see this you can see that when there is more of an s characteristic (33.3 compared to 25 percent), the bond angle increases.