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Chemistry Forums for Students => High School Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: ToSSiN on October 01, 2008, 11:02:45 PM

Title: Cool question
Post by: ToSSiN on October 01, 2008, 11:02:45 PM

First I would like to say that I am new here, 1st post ever :) and I love chemistry :).  This question was actually on a test I recently had, and I was pretty surprised when I learned about this.  The test was just on bonding and such pretty easy but this question was interesting I thought.

The question was..

Predict the shape and bond angles of XeF4. The interesting part is that Xe is a noble gas, but it can actually form COMPOUNDS!!

Now when I answered this question I had no idea what to do first of all, I was confused because most elements bond to form a stable octet, or in some cases like the large group 15 or 16 elements that can form a stable valence of 10 and 12, or like Be or B that have valences of 4 and 6. 

So I took a shot in the dark and hoped that maybe since Xe is a group 18 (noble gas) maybe it was possible for it to have a valence of 16.  The actual answer is that it is possible for Xe to have 12 valence electrons. 

Most people probably know this but I just thought it was interesting ><

Title: Re: Cool question
Post by: azmanam on October 02, 2008, 09:08:33 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_tetrafluoride