Chemical Bonding: SeF₆ Lewis Structure

Drawing the Lewis Structure for SeF₆

Viewing Notes:

• SeF₆ is a Lewis structure with Selenium (Se) which can hold more than 8 valence electrons. Since there are six Fluorine (F) atoms it will be necessary.
• The Lewis structure for SeF₆ has 48 valence electrons available to work with.
• It's a good idea to check the formal charges for your SeF₆ Lewis structure to make sure they are zero.

Transcript: This is the Lewis structure for SeF6. Selenium has six valence electrons. Seven for Fluorine but we have six Fluorines. 6 + 42 gives us 48 total valence electrons. Selenium is the the least electronegative. We'll put it at the center and then put the Fluorines around the outside. So we have a total of 48 valence electrons. We'll put bonds between the Selenium and the Fluorines, there are six of them. And each of theses lines represents two valence electrons. So we've used a total of 12 valence electrons.

And now we'll go around the outside and complete the octets for Fluorine. So we have twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and forty-eight. So we've used all 48 valence electrons and if we look at the fluorines, and each fluorine is symmetrical, so 2, 4, 6, 8, all the fluorines have a full outer shell. The Selenium atom actually has twelve valence electrons around it, but that's okay because it's in period four on the periodic table and it can hold more than eight valence electrons in its outer shell.

So that's the Lewis structure for SeF6. This is Dr. B, and thanks for watching.