MSN Home  |  My MSN  |  Hotmail
Sign in to Windows Live ID Web Search:   
go to MSNGroups 
Free Forum Hosting
 
Important Announcement Important Announcement
The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
Chemistry Corner[email protected] 
  
What's New
  
  Welcome Page  
  About This Site  
  Message Boards  
  General  
  Inorganic  
  Organic  
  Pictures  
  Random  
  FOR ALL  
  Handy Symbols  
  Chemistry Humor  
    
  Documents  
  Chemistry Sites I  
  Chemistry Sites II  
  Chemistry Sites III  
  Organic Sites I  
  Organic Sites II  
  Analytical Sites I  
  Analytical Sites II  
  Lesson Plan Sites  
  Online Problems  
  Names & Formulas  
  Naming Exercises  
  Equations I  
  Equations II  
  Eq. Exercises I  
  Eq. Exercises II  
  The Mole I  
  The Mole II  
  Mole Exercises  
  Stoichiometry  
  Stoich. Exercises  
  More Communities  
  School's Out!  
  _________________  
  Site Map  
  
  
  Tools  
 
Inorganic : Resonance Structures
Choose another message board
View All Messages
  Prev Message  Next Message       
Reply
 Message 2 of 3 in Discussion 
From: MSN Nickname·Steve·  in response to Message 1Sent: 10/24/2004 5:36 AM
You want to remember that in resonance structures, the atoms stay in exactly the same positions and only the electrons are arranged differently.  Resonance structures really represent the same molecule, but with the crudeness of dot structures, this is the best we can do to represent molecules that have more complicated bonding.  (Later you'll use "hybrid" atomic orbitals to make "sigma" and "pi" bonds in molecules like this one, which will give a more accurate but still incomplete picture.)

I believe that the order of bonding is H-C-N-O (see here for example).  We will fill in the rest of the electrons (we have 16 valence electrons total) in different ways, trying to maintain octets on atoms if possible.
 
                                 -   +
One structure is H-C=N=O.  There is one lone electron pair on the carbon and two lone pairs on the oxygen.  The carbon has a formal -1 charge and the nitrogen has a formal +1 charge.  Note that these formal charges are not in agreement with the relative electronegativities of carbon and nitrogen, making this a less favorable structure.

                                                                +  -
The triple bond structure will be H-C=N-O, with three lone pairs on the oxygen atom.  The nitrogen has a +1 formal charge and the oxygen has a -1 formal charge.

                                       +       -
The last structure is H-C=N-O, with one lone pair on the nitrogen and three lone pairs on the oxygen, with a formal charge of +1 on carbon and -1 on oxygen.  Note that this structure has less than an octet on the carbon, making this structure less favorable, but that is allowable.

It is possible to draw more structures, but they will have unreasonable formal charges and are therefore excluded.

Hope this helps!
 
 
Steve


Replies to This Message The number of members that recommended this message.    
     re: Resonance Structures   MSN Nickname·Steve·  10/24/2004 7:53 AM