Electron sharing can be depicted by a Lewis dot structure, in which element symbols are surrounded by dots that represent the valence electrons (electrons in the shell). A bond is the sharing of a pair of valence electrons by atoms. Hydrogen has valence electron(s) in the first shell, but the capacity of the shell is electron(s). When a hydrogen atom comes close enough to a carbon atom for their orbitals to overlap, they can share their electrons. The hydrogen atom is now associated with electron(s) and a bond is formed. As a result, one of the structures does not make sense because hydrogen has only valence electron(s) to share, so it cannot form bonds with two atoms.

Outermost

Covalent

Two

One

Two

Two

Covalent

One

Explanation:

A covalent bond is formed when an atom shares two electrons with another atom. These shared electrons could be contributed by each of the bonding atoms or by only one of the bonding atoms.

Hydrogen has the electronic configuration of 1s1. This implies that it has only one electron in its valence shell although the 1s shell can accommodate two electrons. When the atomic orbitals of carbon and hydrogen overlap, they share two electrons and hydrogen is now associated with two electrons in a covalent bond.

Since hydrogen possesses only one valence electron, it can not be bonded to two atoms.

answer:

the answer is 6 valence electrons.

explanation:

valence is the # of electrons on the outer most shell of an atom.

oxygen has 6.

although, the valency of oxygen is 2, because it only needs to make 2 covalent bonds, or gain 2 electrons, to achieve the stable octet configuration of a noble gas.

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