Question

Dr. haxton told his class that a water molecule can make 4 hydrogen bonds, all of them in the same plane as the three atoms. what would a good student reply? dr. haxton told his class that a water molecule can make 4 hydrogen bonds, all of them in the same plane as the three atoms. what would a good student reply? (a) wrong! each atom makes one hydrogen bond, for a total of 3. (b) right! hydrogen bonds form at both ends of each covalent bond. (c) wrong! two hydrogen bonds are not in the plane of the atoms. none of the above. the student would say both (a) and (c).

Answer 1

The correct answer is Option-C (wrong! two hydrogen bonds are not in the plane of the atoms).

Step-by-step explanation:

Hydrogen bonding is class of intermolecular interactions which develops when a hydrogen atom bonded with most electronegative atom like F, O or N on one molecule interacts with the most electronegative atom on neighbor molecule.

Hydrogen bond interactions experienced by water molecule (red) are shown in attached figure. The oxygen atom is the central atom in given structure. The lone pair of electrons acts as a hydrogen bond acceptors (Blue) while the hydrogen atoms attached to oxygen act as hydrogen bond donors (Green).

As the electronic geometry around oxygen atom is tetrahedral, therefore, the four hydrogen bonds can not be in plane. Instead, two hydrogen bonds will be in plane and two will be out of plane.