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Topic: Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride  (Read 4386 times)

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Offline aestas

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Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride
« on: May 01, 2008, 09:01:41 PM »
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?



Offline enahs

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Re: Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2008, 10:11:07 PM »
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.

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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?


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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.


Offline aestas

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Re: Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2008, 11:20:25 PM »
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?

Offline enahs

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Re: Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2008, 12:06:28 AM »
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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.


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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.

Offline aestas

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Re: Phosphorus and Phosphoryl chloride
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2008, 01:41:29 AM »
Just read up on it. Now everything makes a bit more sense...

And again, thanks for the *delete me*

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