Can a Lewis structure be drawn for any bonded molecule?

1 Answer
Nov 14, 2015

Usually, but the formalism is generally applied to bog standard 2 centre, 2 electron bonds.

Explanation:

Even for carbon chemistry, we have difficulty accurately representing the skeletal formula of benzene. English A levels have prescribed a hexagon and an enscribed circle; at undergraduate level 1,3,5-cyclohexatriene would be represented. These representations are of course formalisms, by which I mean a prescribed or traditional form within the discipline (do I really mean that? I stole that definition off a dictionary site, let me try again).

Carbon chemistry traditionally represents molecules as catenated CC systems, CH2 and CH chains. We can usually apportion the electrons to support this scheme of bonding. For, say diborane, B2H6, we would have to resort to 2 centre, 3 electron bonds to represent bonding in the molecule. Saturated carbon chemistry can generally be represented by 2 centre, 2 electron bonds.