Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: OrganicH2O on May 12, 2019, 05:58:36 PM
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I attached the molecule as a picture. The question is "how many unhybridized valence shell P orbitals does this molecule have?" The correct answer is nine.
My understanding is that each pi bond contains two p orbitals, which brings it up to 4 p orbitals.
I am also guessing the bromine will add some p orbitals, because halogens making only single bonds, and especially larger atoms like 3rd/4th row, will commonly not hybridize their orbitals. But bromine would only have three p orbitals in its valence shell, which means that the answer would be seven. So where do the other two p orbitals come from?