Chemistry · Ch 5 — Chemical Bonding
Bond angle
Bond angle
Bond angle is defined as the angle between the orbitals that hold a central atom's bonding electrons — equivalently, the angle subtended at the central atom by any two of its bonds. It is measured experimentally using spectroscopic techniques, and its value carries direct structural information: it reveals how the various orbitals are actually arranged in space around the central atom, and therefore what overall shape the molecule adopts (this is exactly the quantity VSEPR theory, section 5.3, predicts from lone-pair/bond-pair repulsion). Different molecules show markedly different bond angles depending on their hybridization and lone-pair count — e.g. the symmetric, no-lone-pair BF3 has a full 120° bond angle, while the lone-pair-bearing NH3 (107°18') and …
Table 5.5 — molecule and bond angle: H2O 104°35' (also written 104.5°, the value used consistently elsewhere in this same chapter — the source's OCR-extracted table cell for this entry showed a corrupted, differently-formatted figure, so 104°35' is used here for consistency rather than the garbled variant); NH3 107°18' (matching the value used in section 5.3's own worked explanation of ammonia's compressed bond angle — again, the printed table ce …