Electronic repulsions, between bonding electrons

Of the two conformations of ethane the staggered is 12 kJImol (2 9 heal mol) more stable than the eclipsed The staggered conformation is the most stable conformation the eclipsed is the least stable conformation Two main explanations have been offered for the difference in stability between the two conformations One explanation holds that repulsions between bonds on adjacent atoms destabilize the eclipsed conformation The other suggests that better electron delocalization stabilizes the staggered conformation The latter of these two explanations is now believed to be the correct one... 

In this approach, the shape of the molecule is determined by repulsions between bonding and non-bonding electrons in the valence shell of the central Xe atom. 

It is possible to extend the VSEPR rules to repulsions between bond pairs on adjacent atoms. The extension is straightforward the best structures would be the ones that place these bonds as far apart as possible. As an example, consider the already familiar molecule ethane, H3C—CH3. Since each carbon is surrounded by four electron pairs, it will assume a geometry derived from a tetrahedron, with angles of 109°, as shown in Scheme 7.8a. 

The valence shell of the chlorine atom contains ten electrons seven from the chlorine and one each from the three fluorine atoms. There are three bonding pairs and two lone pairs. The basic shape adopted by the electron pairs In the molecule Is a trigonal bIpyramId. To minimize the repulsion between bonding pairs and lone pairs of electrons, the two lone pairs of electrons occupy the equatorial positions. Flence, the molecule has a T-shape (Figure 14.5). 

Unlike the forces between ions which are electrostatic and without direction, covalent bonds are directed in space. For a simple molecule or covalently bonded ion made up of typical elements the shape is nearly always decided by the number of bonding electron pairs and the number of lone pairs (pairs of electrons not involved in bonding) around the central metal atom, which arrange themselves so as to be as far apart as possible because of electrostatic repulsion between the electron pairs. Table 2.8 shows the essential shape assumed by simple molecules or ions with one central atom X. Carbon is able to form a great many covalently bonded compounds in which there are chains of carbon atoms linked by single covalent bonds. In each case where the carbon atoms are joined to four other atoms the essential orientation around each carbon atom is tetrahedral. 

The very low bond dissociation enthalpy of fluorine is an important factor contributing to the greater reactivity of fluorine. (This low energy may be due to repulsion between non-bonding electrons on the two adjacent fluorine atoms.) The higher hydration and lattice enthalpies of the fluoride ion are due to the smaller size of this ion. 

In the Huckel theory of simple hydrocarbons, one assumes that the election density on a carbon atom and the order of bonds connected to it (which is an election density between atoms) are uninfluenced by election densities and bond orders elsewhere in the molecule. In PPP-SCF theory, exchange and electrostatic repulsion among electrons are specifically built into the method by including exchange and electrostatic terms in the elements of the F matrix. A simple example is the 1,3 element of the matrix for the allyl anion, which is zero in the Huckel method but is 1.44 eV due to election repulsion between the 1 and 3 carbon atoms in one implementation of the PPP-SCF method. 

Many problems with MNDO involve cases where the NDO approximation electron-electron repulsion is most important. AMI is an improvement over MNDO, even though it uses the same basic approximation. It is generally the most accurate semi-empirical method in HyperChem and is the method of choice for most problems. Altering part of the theoretical framework (the function describing repulsion between atomic cores) and assigning new parameters improves the performance of AMI. It deals with hydrogen bonds properly, produces accurate predictions of activation barriers for many reactions, and predicts heats of formation of molecules with an error that is about 40 percent smaller than with MNDO. 

The formalism that we have set up to describe chain flexibility readily lends itself to the problem of hindered rotation. Figure 1.8a shows a sawhorse representation of an ethane molecule in which the angle of rotation around the bond is designated by electron repulsion between the atoms bonded to... 

Dienes would be expected to adopt conformations in which the double bonds are coplanar, so as to permit effective orbital overlap and electron delocalization. The two alternative planar eonformations for 1,3-butadiene are referred to as s-trans and s-cis. In addition to the two planar conformations, there is a third conformation, referred to as the skew conformation, which is cisoid but not planar. Various types of studies have shown that the s-trans conformation is the most stable one for 1,3-butadiene. A small amount of one of the skew conformations is also present in equilibrium with the major conformer. The planar s-cis conformation incorporates a van der Waals repulsion between the hydrogens on C—1 and C—4. This is relieved in the skew conformation. 

The situation with phosphoric anhydrides is similar. The phosphorus atoms of the pyrophosphate anion are electron-withdrawing and destabilize PPj with respect to its hydrolysis products. Furthermore, the reverse reaction, reformation of the anhydride bond from the two anionic products, requires that the electrostatic repulsion between these anions be overcome (see following). 

In deoxyhemoglobin, histidine F8 is liganded to the heme iron ion, but steric constraints force the Fe His-N bond to be tilted about 8° from the perpendicular to the plane of the heme. Steric repulsion between histidine F8 and the nitrogen atoms of the porphyrin ring system, combined with electrostatic repulsions between the electrons of Fe and the porphyrin 77-electrons, forces the iron atom to lie out of the porphyrin plane by about 0.06 nm. Changes in... 

Eclipsing strain (Section 3.6) The strain energy- in a molecule caused by electron repulsions between eclipsed bonds. Fxlipsing strain is also called torsional strain. 

What Are the Key Ideas The central ideas of this chapter are, first, that electrostatic repulsions between electron pairs determine molecular shapes and, second, that chemical bonds can be discussed in terms of two quantum mechanical theories that describe the distribution of electrons in molecules. 

Explain the basis of the VSEPR model of bonding in terms of repulsions between electrons (Section 3.1). 

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