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The octet rule is a chemical rule of thumb that reflects the theory that main-group elements tend to bond in such a way that each atom has eight electrons in its valence shell, giving it the same electronic configuration as a noble gas. The rule is especially applicable to carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and the halogens; although more generally the ...
Since these compounds tend to be more reactive than compounds that obey their rule, electron counting is an important tool for identifying the reactivity of molecules. While the counting formalism considers each atom separately, these individual atoms (with their hypothetical assigned charge) do not generally exist as free species .
Valence Bond theory describes chemical bonding better than Lewis Theory, which states that atoms share or transfer electrons so that they achieve the octet rule. It does not take into account orbital interactions or bond angles, and treats all covalent bonds equally. [8]
Main-group atoms generally obey the octet rule, while transition metals generally obey the 18-electron rule. The noble gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, Rn) are less reactive than other elements because they already have a noble gas configuration. Oganesson is predicted to be more reactive due to relativistic effects for heavy atoms.
A trick is to count up valence electrons, then count up the number of electrons needed to complete the octet rule (or with hydrogen just 2 electrons), then take the difference of these two numbers. The answer is the number of electrons that make up the bonds. The rest of the electrons just go to fill all the other atoms' octets.
[2] [25] Interestingly, the excited state does not obey the octet rule as the carbon atoms have an average 6.5 valence electrons surrounding them. Further, the internuclear region contains only three electrons, the same as in the benzene molecule ( see above ), and this explains why the carbon-carbon bond length in the excited state of ...
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The formulae of simple oxyanions are determined by the octet rule. The corresponding oxyacid of an oxyanion is the compound H z A x O y. The structures of condensed oxyanions can be rationalized in terms of AO n polyhedral units with sharing of corners or edges between polyhedra.