Electron dot structure of dichlorine monoxide

A simple procedure for writing electron dot structures (ELDOTS) was given in a previous article entitled “Lewis Structures and the Octet Rule”.

Several worked examples relevant to this procedure were given in previous articles please see the Sitemap - Table of Contents (Lewis Electron Dot Structures).

Let us consider the case of dichlorine monoxide Cl₂O. What is the electron dot structure (ELDOTS) for this molecule?

Dichlorine monoxide is considered to be an important active chlorinating agent under typical drinking water and wastewater treatment conditions with hypochlorous acid HOCl. In a report to the May 2010 issue of Environmental Sci. & Technology L. Roberts and coworkers  of the Johns Hopkins University report that Cl₂O reacts with micropollutants in source waters, such as the herbicide dimethenamid, to form chlorinated products that may be more toxic than the parent compounds.

As a matter of fact M. Reinhard et al. elegantly have demonstrated that Cl₂ and Cl₂O played much more important role in the chlorination of organic compounds such as p-xylene than did bleach HOCl.  

 

Step 1: Connect the atoms with single bonds. The less electronegative is the oxy gen atom. Hence, the O atom is going to be the central atom.

 

Fig. 1 : Connect the atoms of Cl₂O with single bonds.

 Step 2:  Calculate the # of electrons in π bonds (multiple bonds) using  Lewis structure formula (1):

Where n in this case is 3. Where V = (7 +6 + 7 )  = 20 , V is the number of valence electrons of the Cl₂O molecule.

Therefore, P = 6n + 2 – V = 6 * 3 + 2 – 20  = 0   \  So, there is no double bond.

Step 3 & 4: The   electron dot structures (ELDOTS) of Cl₂O are as follows:

 

Fig. 2 : Electron dot structures (ELDOTS) of Cl₂O.