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Water is SP 2 Hybridisation but is shown in text book as SP 3 Hybridisation , why ? Can you explain?

Water is SP2 Hybridisation but is shown in text book as SPHybridisation , why ?
 Can you explain?

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Grade:11

1 Answers

CHARISHMA
38 Points
9 years ago
In a water molecule, two sp3 hybrid orbitals are occupied by the two lone pairs on the oxygen atom, while the other two are used for bonding with hydrogen. The H-O-H bond angle is less than the tetrahedral angle because of the repulsion of non-bonding electrons on the other orbitals.
* The electronic configuration of oxygen is 1s2 2s2 2px22py12pz1. There are two unpaired electrons in oxygen atom, which may form bonds with hydrogen atoms. However the the bond angles in the resulting molecule should be equal to 90o.
The experimental bond angles reported were equal to 104o28'. To account this, sp3 hybridization before the bond formation was proposed.
* During the formation of water molecule, the oxygen atom undergoes sp3 hybridization by mixing a 2s and three 2p orbitals to furnish four sp3 hybrid orbitals oriented in tetrahedral geometry. 
Among them,  two are half filled and the remaining two are completely filled.
 
* Now the oxygen atom forms two σsp3-s bonds with hydrogen atoms by using half filled hybrid orbitals. 
* The  reported bond angle is 104o28' instead of regular tetrahedral angle: 109o28'. It is again due to repulsions caused by two lone pairs on the bond pairs. 
Thus water molecule gets angular shape (V shape).
 

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