week 9 achieve hw 3

[Nimisha_Seshadri_3C]

Which geometry or geometries are common for complexes with a coordination number of 4?

[Sanjana Sivakumar 2E]

Hello!

For this question, you simply have to look at the shape and see how many bonds are associated with that particular shape. I have posted the images of all 4 shapes below and you can see that square planar and tetrahedral both have 4 bonds. Seesaw has 4 bonds and a lone pair and trigonal bipyramidal has 5 bonds.

Therefore, the structures of square planar and tetrahedral will have a coordination number of 4.

Hope this helps!

Edit: I saw that the images didn't show up, so I added them in!

[Reagan Feldman 1D]

These are the same shapes we discussed when determining the molecular shape of Lewis structures. As we learned, the shapes that have 4 bonds are tetrahedral and square planar. A coordination number of 4 means that there are 4 ligands/bonds, therefore the corresponding shapes would be tetrahedral and square planar.

[Tyler_Kim_2G]

A coordination number of four basically means that four ligands are bound to a central metal atom. From a vsepr chart, you can see that a tetrahedral and square planar shape would have a coordination number of four while a trigonal bipyramidal would have a coordination number of five. I am a bit confused about what the coordination number would be for a seesaw shape, or if it is just uncommon.

[Macy_Anderson_2F]

In lecture Lavelle said if there is a coordination number of 4 you can just think of tetrahedral and square planar.