Question

Explain about the structure of methanol.

Answer 1

1. In methanol, one of the sp3 hybridised orbital of oxygen linearly overlap with the sp3 hybridised orbital of carbon to form a C – O, a bond and another sp3 hybridised orbitai linearly overlap with 1s orbital of hydrogen atom to form a O – H a bond.

1. The remaining two sp3 hybridised orbitais of oxygen are occupied by two lone pairs of electrons. Due to the lone pair – lone pair repulsion, the C – O – H bond angle in methanol is reduced to 108.9° from the regular tetrahedral bond angle of 109.5°.