What does a Lewis dot structure do?

Answer 1

A Lewis dot structure tells chemists a great deal about the structure and bonding in a molecule. It is used to understand what types of bonds exist in the molecule (whether there are single, double or triple bonds, for instance). It can also be used to determine how molecules will react and what some of their properties will be. It can also be used to determine the shape of a molecule and the position of each of the atoms in the molecule (to do this you must also use something called VSEPR, or valence shell electron repulsion theory along with the Lewis dot structure).

See the Related Questions to the left for how to draw a Lewis dot structure of any molecule.

Answer 2

The Lewis Dot structure is a diagram that labels how many electrons, neutrons, and protons an element has. You can find the number of electrons, neutrons, and protons based on the element, element's mass, position on the Periodic Table. etc. (This is a VERY general answer- I'm tired ha!) Basically I know you put the abbreviation of the element and you draw a certain number of dots in a ring around it that corrosponds with the number of electrons, protons, and neutrons it has.

Answer 3

Lewis dot diagrams represent the bonds between the atoms of a molecule, as well as any lone pair of electrons.

For instance, in the O2 molecule, there is a double bond between the two oxygen atoms, but there are also two lone pairs of electrons per oxygen atom.

Answer 4

Dots around the chemical symbol. There can be no more than 8 and they represent the number of valence electrons in an atom. The dots go in the order around the element as shown below.(THE DOTED LINES ARE TO KEEP IT SPACED AND ARE NOT PART OF THE DOT STRUCTURE)

--6 2

3-----5

7-----1

--4 8

Answer 5

The Lewis Dot Structure is a system where elements are written using their symbol (Hydrogen = H, Helium = He, Lithium = Li, etc.) and dots are drawn around the symbol to represent the number of valence (outermost) electrons. (Electrons arrange themselves in specific distances from the center of the atom; if you need to know why, ask God. We don't know yet.)

This is important because, no matter what the element, it is the valence electrons that react with other elements.

Take water (H2O), for example. Oxygen has 6 valence electrons. Hydrogen has 1. There are two hydrogen molecules, (H2) and one oxygen (O). The six electrons from oxygen plus the one electron from each hydrogen atom equals eight. For whatever reason, when electrons reach 8 electrons in their outermost shell, they stop reacting with other atoms.

The atoms that already have 8 valence electrons (Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon; Helium is also included, even though it only has two electrons. Trust me, it doesn't react) are referred to as Noble Gases, and they don't react with much. It takes a lot of energy to force them to change. The Lewis Dot system simply outlines this.

Answer 6

Lewis structure is a simple representation of valence electrons and their bond sharing in a reaction. Its main purpose is to tell us the no. of valence electrons participating in a bond and also, whether they are forming a single,double or triple bond.

However, the arrangement of electrons as shown in Lewis structure is not actual arrangement of electrons in space.

Answer 7

structures of electrons. the dots represent the electrons in the valence shell