what two factors determine the geometric shape of a molecule?

Answer 1

The number of bonding electron domains and the number of nonbonding ones.

Answer 2

The number of bonding and nonbonding electron domains determine the geometric shape of a molecule. A good Lewis dot structure will help determine how many bonding and nonboding domains there are in a molecule.

Here is a website that will can help predict the shape after you have drawn a Lewis dot structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSEPR

Answer 3

1. Number atoms + electrons
2. Number of lone electron pairs

IE. NH3 molecule has 3 atoms around N, and 1 lone electron pair. This means that NH3 will adopt a tetrahedral shape. You have 1 lone pair. Because lone pairs need more space than atoms do (basis of VSPER), the tetrahedral arrangement will be distorted. This gives you its trigonal pyramidal shape.

Answer 4

Shape can be determined from the type of molecular orbitals that are used in forming bonds. HOH is formed from an oxygen with sp3 orbitals, of which 2 are used to bond, and two are filled with unshared electron pairs. These pairs repel each other and push the HOH bond inwards from its expected angle of 109 degrees to 92 degrees if I remember correctly. Bonds of sp2 orbitals lead to atoms at a 120 angle and in a plane, such as benzene.

Answer 5

According to VSEPR, the number of bonding and nonbonding domains of a molecule. Bonding domains are those that contain a bond to another atom, and nonbonding domains are lone pairs.

Example:

Water H-O-H

At first glance, one would think water is linear because of the three atoms,but the oxygen has two lone pairs on it causing a bent structure.

Answer 6

the number of electron clouds( regions) and the number of lone pair electrons e.g in NH3, the central nitrogen has 5 valence electrons, three of which are covalently bound to hydrogen atoms. there is also a lone pair. this means there are 4 electron clouds and we would xpect a tetrahedral, however due to the presence of a lone pair, TRIGONAL PYRAMIDAL SHAPE is observed

Answer 7

the lone pair electrons and the bonding pair electrons around the Central atom e.g.
LP LP repulsion > LP BP repulsion > BP BP repulsion

so electons will be as far apart as they can get but the angls will depend on the strengh of the repultion

Answer 8

1.) Arrangement of atomic constituents
2.) Electrostatic forces between atomic constituents

Answer 9

The physical and chemical properties of the substance in question.

Answer 10

the number of bonds and lone pairs of electrons