Table of Contents
Why oxygen show valency 2 but sulphur can show valency upto 6?
“The valency of oxygen is generally two, whereas sulphur shows valency of two, four, and six”. Oxyegn does not have vacant d-orbitals, so it cannot extend its valency beyond 2, but in case of sulphur, vacant d-orbitals participate in bonding, so it can also show valencies of 4 and 6.
Why can sulfur make 6 bonds but oxygen can only make 2?
Now sulfur has 6 unpaired electrons which means it can form 6 covalent bonds to give a total of 12 electrons around its valence shell. Hence oxygen and other Period 2 elements do not use orbitals in the third principal quantum shell for bonding and cannot expand octet.
Why can sulfur Form 6 bonds while oxygen can t?
Sulphur has 6 Valance electrons so according to VBT it can form maximum of 6 covalent bonds. Same is with Oxygen but that can form maximum of 3 covalent bonds. This is because of availablity of vacant d orbitals in Sulphur, which can accommodate extra electrons other than octet. Thus sulphur forms SF6.
Why oxygen is not a valency of 6?
Oxygen has the atomic number 8 and carbon has the atomic number 6. So the number of valence electrons is the number of electrons in the outermost orbital. For oxygen it is 6 while for carbon it is 4. It requests 2 more electrons so that its valence shell has 8 electrons.
Why does Sulphur show variable valency?
Sulphur comes in 3rd period of the periodic table and it contains s,p and d orbital only. In the ground state, the d orbital remains empty, when excitation occurs there is jumping of paired electrons to the d orbital and therefore they show an increase in valency or variable valency.
Can Sulphur make double bonds?
Because sulfur does not form strong S=S double bonds, elemental sulfur usually consists of cyclic S8 molecules in which each atom completes its octet by forming single bonds to two neighboring atoms, as shown in the figure below.
Can sulfur have 6 bonds?
Sulfur is capable of forming 6 bonds because it can have an expanded valence shell; sulfur is in period 3 of the Periodic Table.
Can sulfur form double bonds?
Because sulfur does not form strong S=S double bonds, elemental sulfur usually consists of cyclic S8 molecules in which each atom completes its octet by forming single bonds to two neighboring atoms, as shown in the figure below. S8 molecules can pack to form more than one crystal.