Chemical Bonding

• The formulas of the chemical compounds are no

accident.
• There is NaCl, but no NaCl2; there is a CaF2, but no CaF.
On the other hand, certain pairs of elements form two,
or even more, different compounds, e.g. Cu2O, CuO;
N2O, NO, NO2. In the case of ionic compounds the
relative number of positive and negative ions in a
formula is governed simply by the rule of electrical
neutrality.
• In covalent compounds, or within polyatomic ions (like
NO2-), structures are formed by covalent bonds (i.e.,
electron sharing).
1 Lewis electron formula:
• The Lewis structure is used to represent the covalent
bonding of a molecule or ion.
• It displays the electrons of the outer shells because these
electrons are the ones that participate in making
chemical bonds.
• For simple molecules, the most effective way to get the
correct Lewis structure is to write the Lewis diagrams for
all the atoms involved in the bonding and adding up the
total number of valence electrons that are available for
bonding.
• For example, oxygen has 6 electrons in the outer shell,
which are the pattern of two lone pairs and two singles. If
the electrons are not placed correctly, one could think
that oxygen has three lone pairs (which would not leave
any unshared electrons to form chemical bonds).
• After adding the four unshared electrons around element
symbol, form electron pairs using the remaining two
outer shell electrons.
 Incorrect structure correct structure

• One good example is the water molecule. Water has the

chemical formula of H2O, which means there are two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
• The Lewis structure of each of these atoms would be as
follows: Let us try another example:
Example- 1:
Write the Lewis structure for methane (CH4).
Answer: Hydrogen atoms are always placed on the outside of
the molecule, so carbon should be the central atom.

After counting the valence electrons, we have a total of 8 [4

from carbon + 4(1 from each hydrogen] = 8.
Each hydrogen atom will be bonded to the carbon atom, using
two electrons. The four bonds represent the eight valence
electrons with all octets satisfied, so your structure is
complete.
Example- 2 :
Write the Lewis structure for carbon dioxide (CO2).
Answer: Carbon is the lesser electronegative atom and
should be the central atom.

After counting the valence electrons, we have a total of 16

[4 from carbon + 2(6 from each oxygen)] = 16.
Table 1 shows Lewis dot formulas for the representative
elements. All elements in a given group have the same outer-
shell electron configuration. It is somewhat arbitrary on which
side of the atom symbol we write the electron dots. We do,
however, represent an electron pair as a pair of dots and an
unpaired electron as a single dot
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