Xenon hybridization

With a steric number of 6, xenon has octahedral electron group geometry. This means the inner atom requires six directional orbitals, which are provided by an. s p d hybrid set. Fluorine uses its valence 2 p orbitals to form bonds by overlapping with the hybrid orbitals on the xenon atom. The two lone pairs are on opposite sides of a square plane, to minimize electron-electron repulsion. See the orbital overlap view on the next page. 

Cuello, J. D., Yang, Y, Ono, E., Jordan, K. A. Nakamura, T. (2000). Hybrid solar and xenon-metal halide lighting for lunar and Martian bioregenerative life support. Soc. Automotive Eng. Tech. Paper 2000-01-2426. 

The Lewis structure for XeF4 has six pairs of electrons around xenon that are arranged octahedrally to minimize repulsions. An octahedral set of six atomic orbitals is required to hold these electrons, and the xenon atom is assumed to be d2sp3 hybridized. 

Xenon uses six d2sp hybrid atomic orbitals to bond to the four fluorine atoms and to hold the two lone pairs. 

Note that the lone pairs are placed in the plane where they are 120 degrees apart. Accommodating five pairs at the vertices of a trigonal bipyramid can be explained if the xenon atom adopts a set of five dsp3 orbitals. Each fluorine atom has four electron pairs and can be assumed to be sp3 hybridized. The XeF2 molecule has a linear arrangement of atoms. 

The bonding in xenon difluoride may be accounted for by the resonance hybrid (F—Xe)+F and F (Xe—F)+ ). (This description maintains both classical valence concepts the octet and the electron pair bond.) High bond polarity is associated with such a description since the negative charge borne... 

Nelson and Gordy (7) were successful in producing trapped BFg radicals by gamma irradiation of solid xenon which contained small concentrations of BFg. From observations on the electron-spln-resonance spectra of these radicals, a bond angle of 112 for BFg was derived by these workers to account for the hybridization of the o-bondlng orbitals of the boron atom. We adopt their... 

Write the Lewis formulas and predict the hybrid orbitals and the shapes of these polyatomic ions and covalent molecules (a) HgCl2 (b) BF3 (c) Bp4 (d) SbCl5 (e) SbFg". (a) What is the hybridization of each C in these molecules (i) H2C=0 (ii) HC=N (iii) CH3CH2CH3 (iv) ketene, H2C=C=0. (b) Describe the shape of each molecule. The following fluorides of xenon have been well charac-... 

TABLE 24-3 1 Xenon Fluorides Reaction Conditions e Pairs Around Xe Xe Hybridization, Molecular Geometry ... 

XeF2 There are 10 valence electrons (8 from valence shell of xenon 5s2 5p6 and two form the two bonded fluorine atoms) to be filled in orbitals. These require five orbitals which can be formed by the hybridisation of one 5s, three 5p and one 5d orbitals (sp3d hybridization). These are directed towards the five comers of a trigonal bipyramid. Two of these contain shared electrons, the other three lone pairs. For greatest stability, the shared pairs are as far apart as possible, so Xe - F bonds are at 180° to each other and the stmcture is linear. 

FOLLOW-UP PROBLEM 11.1 Use partial orbital diagrams to show how the atomic orbitals of the central atoms mix to form hybrid orbitals in (a) beiyllium fluoride, BeF2 (b) silicon tetrachloride, SiCU (c) xenon tetrafluoride, XeF4. 

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