Chemical Bonding: SiF₄ Lewis Structure

Drawing the Lewis Structure for SiF₄

Viewing Notes:

• SiF₄ is often found in the plumes of volcanoes. Other than that it's not too common.
• In the SiF₄ Lewis structure Silicon (Si) is the least electronegative atom and goes at the center of the structure.
• The Lewis structure for SiF₄ has 32 valence electrons available to work with.
• SiF₄ is similar to the SiH₄ Lewis structure.

Transcript: All right: this is Dr. B. We're going to do the Lewis structure for SiF4. So let's start out. On the periodic table, Silicon is in group 4, sometimes called 14, so it's got 4 valence electrons. Fluorine, group 7--7 valence electrons, but we have 4 of those so we're going to multiply that by 4; and that is 4 plus 28, is 32. So we have 32 valence electrons to work with. Silicon is the least electronegative so it goes at the center, and then the Fluorines will go around the outside. So we'll put those there. And then let's put some electrons around there.

So we'll take and put 2 electrons between each one of these to form a chemical bond. So we've used 8, and we have 32. So 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, and then 32. So we've used the 32 valence electrons. Let's see if we have octets. So in the center, Silicon has 8 valence electrons; that's an octet. And then each of the Fluorines on the outside has 8 as well. So those octets are satisfied, and we've used 32 valence electrons that we had available. So that is the Lewis structure for SiF4. You could also draw it as a structural formula that would look like this right here.

And that's it. This is Dr. B., and thanks for watching.