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Oxygen likes to form two bonds, and silicon, like carbon, likes to form four. However unlike carbon, silicon does not like to form double bonds because it is a bigger atom and the p orbitals responsible for forming pi bonds are more diffuse, and so overlap between p orbitals on adjacent nuclei is poor. For this reason, CO2 is a small molecular gas with formula O=C=O, whereas silica, which has the same type of (SiO2) forms an extended structure characterized by single bonds between silicon and oxygen atoms. It is the only structure available that minimizes the number of pi bonds formed with silicon atoms.
is there also another way to know whether a molecule like to form sigma or pi bonds without pre-knowledge?
As I understood it: Silicon has a electronic configuration of 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^2in contrast, carbon has 1s^2 2s^2 2p^8 ... based on that, Si is more inclined to build sigma bonds because it has more s orbitals filled than p orbitals, or?