Why is CH4 tetrahedral while NF3 is pyramidal?
1 Answer
Mar 19, 2018
Here's what I get.
Explanation:
Methane has both tetrahedral electron geometry and molecular geometry.
Methane has four
Similarly, ammonia has a tetrahedral electron geometry.
Ammonia has four
However, our technology can't "see" the lone pair electrons.
All it can detect are the atoms and the angles between them. It "sees" just a trigonal pyramidal arrangement of atoms.
Thus, the molecular geometry of ammonia is trigonal pyramidal.