Talk:Sp² bond

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This article could really benefit from a picture and a more lengty explanation. I can hardly understand anything in this article, but as I haven't studied any chemistry or physics since senior high maybe that is to be expected. What do those binding thingies represent for instance?

Honestly? The entire article is misnamed. An sp2 'bond' means any bond involving an sp2 orbital. I'm thinking the article would be better named 'sp2 hybridization.' In any case, I'm going to start working on this article now. I'm going to backup the old version here as I'll probably be making some major revisions. --EagleFalconn

[edit] Old Article Backup

An sp2 bond is the electronic configuration of carbon atoms. At ground state this configuration is different to that of its excited state. At ground state, the electronic configuration of carbon is 1s2 2s2 2px1 2py1.

In the excited state, the electronic configuration of carbon is 1s2 2s1 2px1 2py1 2pz1. However, the carbon atom may not use all its s-orbital and p-orbitals for hybridization. Instead, it may use one s-orbital and two p-orbitals to form three sp2 hybrid orbitals.

If the carbon atom undergoes sp2 hybridization, three sp2 equivalent hybrid orbitals are generated. The hybrid orbitals, each holding one electron, repel one another and take up the shape of a trigonal plane. The angles between the sp2 hybrid orbitals are 120 degrees. All the three sp2 hybrid orbitals lie on the single plane. The remaining 2p orbital is oriented perpendicular to this plane.

[edit] External links

Trigonal Planar configuration

Molecular geometry