How many bonding electrons in the dioxygen molecule?

1 Answer
anor277
Feb 4, 2017

In #"dioxygen gas"# there are TWO bonding electron pairs.......four electrons in total.

Explanation:

The typical Lewis structure of the #O_2# molecule is as #O=O#. Each oxygen atom is conceived to be #sp_2# hybridized, and there are two lone pairs around each oxygen atom in the molecule.

To be a bit more systematic, each oxygen atom has 8 electrons. Two of these electrons are inner core, and this leaves 6 electrons to distribute around each atom, and this fills the three #sp_2# orbitals.

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