Can a Lewis structure be drawn for any bonded molecule?

1 Answer
anor277
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 C−C 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.

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