Covalent bonding part 2
Many non-metal atoms form diatom molecules like oxygen as seen in the previous chapter. These are shown below:
| Diatomic Molecules | Formulae |
| Oxygen | O2 |
| Chlorine | Cl2 |
| Hydrogen | H2 |
| Nitrogen | N2 |
| Fluorine | F2 |
| Bromine | Br2 |
| Iodine | I2 |
Above we see that Nitrogen forms a diatomic molecule. We know that nitrogen possesses 5 electrons in its outer shell and needs a total of 3 electrons to have a complete outer shell. As such, each nitrogen atom will donate 3 electrons to the covalent bond to form 3 pairs of electrons or a triple bond. A total of 6 electrons will be shared and along with the remaining 2 outer electrons, will form a complete outer shell of 8 electrons.
This is shown below:
Where e is used to represent electrons.