Ethene hybridization

The element before carbon in Period 2, boron, has one electron less than carbon, and forms many covalent compounds of type BX3 where X is a monovalent atom or group. In these, the boron uses three sp hybrid orbitals to form three trigonal planar bonds, like carbon in ethene, but the unhybridised 2p orbital is vacant, i.e. it contains no electrons. In the nitrogen atom (one more electron than carbon) one orbital must contain two electrons—the lone pair hence sp hybridisation will give four tetrahedral orbitals, one containing this lone pair. Oxygen similarly hybridised will have two orbitals occupied by lone pairs, and fluorine, three. Hence the hydrides of the elements from carbon to fluorine have the structures... 

The vinyl H2C=CH radical can be produced by cleavage of a C-H bond in ethene, and has been studied in the gas phase. The unpaired electron clearly occupies a carbon sp hybrid orbital, to lapse into the language of descriptive organic chemistry, but there are regions of space where the, 6-spin electrons have... 

You may recall that we discussed the bonding in ethene in Chapter 7. The double bond in ethene and other alkenes consists of a sigma bond and a pi bond. The ethene molecule is planar. There is no rotation about the double bond, since that would require breaking the pi bond. The bond angle in ethene is 120°, corresponding to sp2 hybridization about each carbon atom. The geometries of ethene and the next member of the alkene series, QHg, are shown in Figure 22.6. 

Formation of a <7-bond by donation from the 7r-orbital of ethene into a vacant metal dsp2 hybrid orbital... 

We use different hybridization schemes to describe other arrangements of electron pairs (Fig. 3.16). For example, to explain a trigonal planar electron arrangement, like that in BF, and each carbon atom in ethene, we mix one s-orbital with two /7-orbitals and so produce three sp2 hybrid orbitals ... 

The lower signal is more complicated, and before we can interpret it exactly we need some background information. The magnitude of one-bond C-C coupling constants depends on bond hybridization (ethane 35, ethene 68, benzene 56, ethyne 172 Hz), while two- and three-bond C-C couplings are very small, often around 2-5 Hz. The second thing we have to remember, and this is a new concept, is that the lines in the multiplets from INADEQUATE spectra often come from different spin systems ... 

Similar, but different, redeployment is envisaged when a carbon atom combines with three other atoms, e.g. in ethene (ethylene) (p. 8) three sp2 hybrid atomic orbitals disposed at 120° to each other in the same plane (plane trigonal hybridisation) are then employed. Finally, when carbon combines with two other atoms, e.g. in ethyne (acetylene) (p. 9) two sp1 hybrid atomic orbitals disposed at 180° to each other (idigonal hybridisation) are employed. In each case the s orbital is always involved as it is the one of lowest energy level. 

Both carbon atoms in ethene undergo sp2 hybridization. The C-H bonds involve overlap of sp1 carbon orbitals with Is orbitals of the H atoms. The carbon-carbon double bond involves the overlap of sp2 orbitals from each carbon to give the o bond and the side-on overlap of a p orbital from each carbon atom to give the n bond. 

Since the situation about the height of the insertion barrier is not so clear, we performed a systematic comparison of the performances of different computational approaches in determining insertion barriers and geometries, with the aim to offer a further contribution to the discussion. The insertion transition state was located with different pure and hybrid DFT functional, and at the HF and MP2 level of theory. The main geometrical parameters of the transition state for the insertion reaction of ethene into the Zr-C bond of the H2Si(Cp)2ZrCH3+ species are reported in Table 4. 

All alkenes contain a carbon-to-carbon double bond. We can use ethene as a typical example to explain the bonding in alkenes. On each carbon atom of the double bond, the 2s orbital mixes with two of the 2p orbitals to form three degenerate sp hybrid orbitals. The remaining 2p orbital is left unhybridised. 

Each carbon atom in ethene uses its three sp hybrid orbitals to form a bonds with two hydrogen atoms and with the other carbon atom. The unhybridised 2p orbitals left on the carbon atoms overlap side-on to form a k bond. The formation of the bonds in ethene is illustrated in the following diagram. 

They can be handled analogous to thermosetting resins, and thus the use of highly volatile comonomers, such as ethene or prop-ene is prohibitive. Instead, other vinyl monomers are used. A heat curable formulation uses a mixture of tetracyclododecene, 2-norbomene, 5-vinyl-2-norbomene, and divinylbenzene as reactive components (41). The mixture further contains 3,5-di-ferf-butylhy-droxyanisole as antioxidant and a hybrid catalyst system containing a zirconium based metathesis catalyst and a radical catalyst. The metathesis catalyst is benzylidene (l,3-dimesitylimidazolidin-2-yl-idene)(tricyclohexylphosphine)ruthenium dichloride and the radical catalyst is di-ferf-butyl peroxide. 

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