Chemical Bonding: H₂ Lewis Structure

Drawing the Lewis Structure for H₂

Viewing Notes:

• H₂ is a very explosive, colorless gas. The H₂ Lewis structure is also one of the simpliest to draw.
• Hydrogen is in Group 1 and therefore has only one valence electron.
• Hydrogen atoms only need 2 valence electrons to have a full outer shell.

Transcript: Hi, this is Dr. B. Let's do the Lewis structure for H2, Hydrogen gas. It's a quite explosive gas, so please don't fill your blimp up with it. Let's look at the periodic table. Hydrogen is in group 1, that means it has 1 valence electron. But we have 2 Hydrogen atoms, so let's multiply that by 2, for a total of 2 valence electrons. So that's what we'll use to form chemical bonds between the Hydrogens. So we'll draw our Hydrogens out right here. We have 2 valence electrons. Let's start by putting a pair of electrons between the Hydrogens, that bonds them together. We've used all our valence electrons up.

The interesting thing about Hydrogen is, it only needs two valence electrons to have a full outer shell. That Hydrogen right there has two, and because they're sharing, that Hydrogen also has two. That's the dot structure for Hydrogen gas. We could also write it as a structural formula like this, right here, where these bonding electrons are represented by this line here. That means two bonding electrons.

So that's it. This is Dr. B., and thanks for watching.