Question

What is the Lewis dot diagram for carbon?

Answer 1

Hint: The valence electrons of the atoms can be represented using the Lewis dot diagram. They are a simplified version of the valence shell electrons of a molecule and use dots to represent the valence electrons.

Complete answer:
To draw the Lewis dot structure of carbon, the following steps should be followed.
- We first need to find out the number of electrons in the atom.
Since the atomic number of carbon is 12 and is in the ground state, the number of electrons in the carbon atom is 12.
- Then electronic configuration of the element must be written. This will help us figure out how many electrons are there in the outermost shell.
\[C^{12}:1{{s}^{2}}2{{s}^{2}}2{{p}^{2}}\]
- Now, we determine the number of electrons in the outermost shell to find out the number of valence electrons.
Here we can see that the outermost shell is the 2nd shell for which the principal quantum number n=2.
The 2nd shell of carbon has 4 electrons, 2 from s subshell and 2 from p subshell. Hence the carbon atom has 4 valence electrons.
- Now, the valence electrons are depicted on the symbol of the atom to draw the Lewis dot diagram.

Note: It should be noted that when the atom is an ion, the electrons added to or subtracted from the Lewis dot diagram are equal to the magnitude of the charge. In the case of an anion (negative charge), electrons are added and in the case of a cation (positive) electrons are subtracted.