Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: aestas on May 01, 2008, 09:01:41 PM
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Brief background, I'm a grade 12 high school student studying for my IB chem exams next week...I have a hunch that this all related to hybridization, but for some reason why, I can't really grasp the concepts... I'm having difficulty with the entire bonding unit as a whole so any help is appreciated!
1) How can phosphorous facilitate 5 bonds? It confuses me when I encounter compounds such as phosphorus pentachloride because it somehow doesn't make sense to me...
2) Why does phosphoryl chloride have a double bond with oxygen? Couldn't it just make 4 single bonds with the 1 oxygen and 3 chlorines?
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1)
There are many ways to approach this. The simplest to start your researching on would be "valence shell expansion". That is a super simplified version, but you can get info and go from there, and ask if you want/need to go further/deeper.
2)
Well, I am confused by part of your question.
Why does phosphoryl chloride have a double bond with oxygen?
Would the Oxygen be happy with just a single bond? Would it be charged, and if so, how? Is that stable?
Couldn't it just make 4 single bonds with the 1 oxygen and 3 chlorines?
Say what? 4 single bonds with 1 oxygen? How are those then single bonds?
That whole part of your question is rather confusing.
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Sorry, I should have clarified...
I meant why isn't compound is just made up of the P-O bond instead of the P=O bond? But I suppose that oxygen wouldn't be satisfied with just a P-O bond... I think leads back to the question how can P facilitate 5 bonds...
The main problem is that when the question tells me to schedule a compound like POCl3, how will I know that I need to make a double bond between P and O?
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how will I know that I need to make a double bond between P and O?
Well, with Oxygen, unless there is a charge specified or something else attached to it, it will be double bonded then.
As for drawing structures, a lot of it does just come down to experience.
I think leads back to the question how can P facilitate 5 bonds..
Search what I said earlier. In short, availability to use D orbitals.
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Just read up on it. Now everything makes a bit more sense...
And again, thanks for the *delete me*