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AP Chemistry 1.5 Structure and Arrangement of Atoms 306 Views


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AP Chemistry: Structure of Atoms Drill 1, Problem 5. What is the hybridization of the carbon atom in the Lewis structure?

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Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Carbon Atoms. By far the easiest atoms to copy.

00:13

What is the hybridization of the carbon atom in the Lewis structure?

00:19

And here are your potential answers...

00:26

OK, so the key to answering this question is to understand what hybridization is.

00:32

You've probably heard of hybrid cars...or even dog hybrids, like a labradoodle.

00:37

They're super energy-efficient.

00:40

The concept of hybridization derives from mixing the

00:43

originals of something into a new mix, or hybrid.

00:47

In chemistry, hybridization refers to the mixing of atomic orbitals.

00:56

Just as there's a path we can follow to define the orbit of a planet around the sun, there's

01:01

also a path we can follow to define the way an electron orbits the nucleus of an atom...also

01:06

called an atomic orbital.

01:08

Hybridization in chemistry refers to the mixing of atomic orbitals into hybrid orbitals which

01:14

allow electrons to form chemical bonds.

01:17

In fact, if atoms didn't "hybridize", some of these chemical bonds couldn't form because

01:21

they wouldn't have the right shape or structure.

01:24

Here, hybridization allows the Carbon to single bond to two chlorine atoms and double bond

01:30

to the single oxygen atom. Oooh... edgy.

01:34

Now onto the REAL question. How do we figure out what the hybridization of the carbon atom is?

01:40

When determining hybridization, we can just count the number of other atoms that the atom

01:44

in question is connected to.

01:46

Carbon is connected to two chlorine atoms, and one oxygen atom.

01:51

It doesn't matter that carbon is double-bound to oxygen; it is still only bound to three atoms.

01:56

Three atoms means three hybridized orbitals.

02:00

But wait, our answer choices aren't just numbers... in chemistry notation, we can add the exponents

02:07

in s and p to find the number of hybridized orbitals it represents.

02:12

Looking at answer C, we have the exponent in s...1 plus the exponent in p... 2. 1 plus

02:19

2 is... give us a second... oh, right. 3.

02:22

So our answer is C.

02:24

As in "carbonite."

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