Question 2F.15

[Julia Mazzucato 4D]

2F.15 Noting that the bond angle of an sp3 hybridized atom is 109.58 and that of an sp2 hybridized atom is 1208, 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 increases. Does anyone know why/can explain the reasoning for this?

[Aliya Jain 2B]

viewtopic.php?p=2547&sid=0d36d6a0a83ae99de2b5592ede5e800f#p2547
Dr. Lavelle answered this question a couple years ago!

[Brian_Ho_2B]

If the hybridization increases in s-character, it means that there's less p and less d character. For instance, sp has more s character than sp2 or sp3. sp3 has bond angles of 109.5, sp2 is 120, and sp is 180. As you can see, the less p character there is, aka more s character, the bond angles are getting bigger. Remember that hybridization includes both lone pairs and bonds, so the electron arrangement is accounted for.