00:02
Hi there.
00:03
In this question, we are asked to draw the lewis structure for the carbon dioxide molecule.
00:09
So that would be co2.
00:11
So the first step is we want to count how many valence electrons we have to work with, because we know lewis structure shows each valence electron as a dot.
00:21
So carbon is in group 4a of the periodic table.
00:24
So carbon has four valence electrons.
00:28
And there are two oxygen atoms, and oxygen is in group 6a of the periodic table, so each oxygen has six valence electrons.
00:37
So this gives us a total of 16 valence electrons.
00:42
So our completed structure needs to have exactly 16 dots in it, because one dot for each phalance electron.
00:53
All right, the next thing we want to do is draw the skeleton structure for this.
00:59
In other words, how the atoms are joined.
01:01
So we know carbon is typically in the middle.
01:05
So we're putting carbon in the center and the two oxygens on either side of it.
01:15
Okay, so we know there has to be at least, at the very least, a single bond holding each oxygen to the carbon.
01:24
So i'm going to start out by putting in two pairs of dots to show the single bond.
01:29
That uses four of our dots.
01:30
We have 12 more to put into the diagram.
01:33
And so now we just need to start completing octets.
01:38
We know that each atom would like to have eight balance electrons, except for hydrogen, of course, which is happy with two.
01:45
But oxygens and carbon, they all want eight.
01:49
So we'll start completing the dot structures on the oxygens.
01:54
That takes six.
01:55
We have six more electrons.
02:00
Okay.
02:01
We have all 16 of our valence electrons in here...