Thursday, October 23, 2014

How many pairs of electrons do the two oxygen atoms in an oxygen molecule share with each other? Please explain.

Oxygen molecule has a pair of oxygen atoms. So,the oxygen molecule is represented by the formula O2.


The oxygen atom has  8 elctrons. In the first K shell it has 2 electrons and in the L shell it has 6 electrons.


The electronic configuration of the oxygen atom  is :


 1s2  2s2 2p4.


In the outer Lshell there are 6 electrons (short of 2 electrons compared to noble gases).So if we pair the electrons,it require two more eletrons .So this could be made good by capturing 2 electrons or sharing with 2electrons.Therefore, two electrons of each of the atom in the oxygen molecule makes the double bond with each other to attain the stable configuration of noble gas.

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