Oxygen, carbon and hydrogen forms how many bond (s) respectively?

1 Answer
Dec 23, 2016

Oxygen forms two single covalent bonds, carbon forms four single covalent bonds and hydrogen forms one single covalent bond.

Explanation:

The maximum number of covalent bonds an atom can form depends on the number of electrons there are in its outer shell. This can be worked by looking at the group the atom is in.

Oxygen has #2#, carbon has #4# and hydrogen has #1# so these are the max number of single covalent bonds they can form.

Of course, these atoms can form more or fewer bonds, but these wouldn't single covalent bonds. They would be either double covalent bonds or coordinate covalent bonds.