Question

Draw the electron dot structure of Ethane.

Answer 1

Hint In order to draw the structure, consider the number of valence electrons for the given molecule and then draw the structure. We should know that an ethane molecule has 6 hydrogen atoms and 2 carbon atoms. The formula of ethane is found to be $C_n{H}_{2n+2}$, that is we can say that the homologous series of formula of alkanes is followed here because ethane is an alkane.

Complete Step by step solution:
- Let us first draw the electron dot structure of Ethane and then will discuss in brief about its structure:
- We can write the chemical structure for ethane molecule as:
$C{H}_3-C{H}_3$
- As we know that all the bonds that are present in ethane molecules are covalent bonds. We can draw the electron dot structure of ethane molecule as:

- It is found that on the basis of outermost valence shell electronic configuration of carbon, there are four valence electrons. Whereas, there is only 1 valence electron for hydrogen. We can see in the above structure that they are shared by a covalent bond.
- And we can see that each carbon atom is basically surrounded by three hydrogen atoms.

Note:
- As we know that there are some interesting facts found about ethane that it is the second in the homologous series of alkane. The first one found to be methane, which is further followed by the other one in the series are propane, butane and so on.