We can find the molecular geometry for SO2
it two ways.
First, we can use the Lewis structure for
SO2 to visualize how the atoms and unbonded
electron pairs will spread out in three dimensions.
This is because electrons are negative and
they repel each other.
The Lewis structure doesn't tell us this directly
but if we visualize the atoms and unbonded
electron pairs on that central atom, repelling
each other, we'll see that oxygen atoms move
away from the unbonded pair and give the molecule
a bent shape.
That looks like this...
In essence the Valence Shell Electron Pairs
are Repelling each other, giving SO2 it's
shape.
We can also use the AXN notation to determine
the shape of SO2.
A is the central atom, the Sulfur, we have
one of those, X the bonded atoms, those two
oxygen atoms, and N that is the unbonded electron
pairs.
We only have one unbonded electron pair for
SO2.
We'll ignore the ones, and we can see that
we have AX2N.
We can remember that this is a bent molecule,
or we can look it up on a table.
Here we can see AX2N is Bent and has a bond
angle of 120 degrees.
That bond angle, looks like this ...
And that's it, the SO2 molecular geometry.
It's bent with a bond angle of 120 degrees.
This is Dr. B. and thanks for watching.
