00:01
In this question, we are looking at ethylene oxide, which is the structure i've drawn on the screen.
00:06
And part a asks why athlete oxide is so reactive.
00:09
And as a hint, it tells us to consider the bond angles compared to what is predicted by the bes4 model.
00:16
So the vsepr model would predict that because these carbons are sp3, both of them are sp3, that they would have 109 .5 degree bond angles.
00:28
But because of this structure, that is not true.
00:31
They don't have 109 .5 degree bond angles.
00:34
They actually have 60 degree bond angles right here and right here.
00:39
Because that's the only way to get a three -membered ring is to have those 60 -degree bond angles.
00:46
So because they are so close together, they're almost 50 degrees closer together than they want to be, that creates a lot of electron electron -replotions.
00:58
And that causes it to be very, very reactive because it's very unstable...