4.95

[Cam Bear 2F]

For chapter 4 number 95, what do the arrows pointing at the lone pairs on the oxygen labeled sp2 refer to?

[Nehal Banik]

It just means where-ever the arrow is pointing, that atom has an hybridization of sp2.

[Cam Bear 2F]

so why doesn't the oxygen atom have a 2sp2 hybridization?

[Golbarg Rahimi 3k]

The hybridization for oxygen is sp2 since it has 3 regions of electron density surrounding it. two regions of electron density are the lone pairs and the third region is the double bond. double bonds count as one region of electron density. we use 2sp2 when we want to specify the actual orbitals involved in the sigma or pi bond.