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For the P4 Lewis structure it's a bit more difficult, we need to think in three dimensions.
So we're going to have a triangular pyramid. So the base of our pyramid is going to be
a triangle which you can see on the screen right now.
We'll then add the top of our pyramid. So you can imagine that these two ends in the
front, they're our towards us, and then this part right here is back in the screen. And
then we have the top of the pyramid.
We're going to put a Phosphorous atom on each corner. So we'e used the four Phosphorous
atoms that we have for the P4 Lewis structure. Remember, this Phosphorous right here is going
back into the screen while these two are closer to us.
So we have a total 20 valence electrons for the P4 Lewis structure. If we count the bonds
we've already formed, we formed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 chemical bonds. So each of those lines
represents a chemical bond, and each bond is two electrons. So we've used 12 valence
electrons. And you can see each of the Phosphorous atoms only has six valence electrons, it has
three bonds going to it. So it needs eight for a full outer shell, or an octet.
So let's go around and fill the octets of the Phosphorus atoms until we get to the 20
valence electrons we have for the Lewis structure for P4.
So we have 12 we've used, 14, 16, 18, and 20. We've used all 20 valence electrons, and
you can see that each of the Phosphorous atoms now has eight valence electrons. It's those
three bonds, there are three valence electrons there, and then the two that we've just added.
All of the atoms have octets, we've used 20 valence electrons, that's it. That's the Lewis
structure for P4.
This is Dr. B, thanks for watching.