VSEPR geometry lab
Change the pairs around a central atom and watch the shape follow.
Scientific learning path
- 01UnderstandLive
- 02ExploreLive
- 03ExperimentLive
- 04ObserveLive
- 05ExplainLive
- 06ApplyLive
- 07TestBuilding
- Bonding pair
- Lone pair
Description of this simulation
4 bonding pairs and 0 lone pairs make a steric number of 4, written AX4. The electron geometry is tetrahedral. With no lone pairs the molecular geometry is the same: tetrahedral. The bond angle is about 109.5 degrees. CH4 has this shape.
AX4
Tetrahedral
- Steric number
- 4
- Electron geometry
- Tetrahedral
- Molecular geometry
- Tetrahedral
- Bond angle
- 109.5°
- Hybridization
- sp³
- A molecule with this shape
- CH4
With no lone pairs, these two are the same shape.
A flat projection
The drawing is a flat slice through a three-dimensional shape, so the angle you can measure on screen is not the angle of the molecule. The angle stated in the panel is the real one.
What this model shows — and what it simplifies
Educational ModelVSEPR counts electron domains and assumes they get as far apart as they can.
Where do we see this in real life?
Water being bent rather than linear is why it is a polar molecule, why ice floats, and why it dissolves salt. A linear water molecule would cancel its own dipole and life would have no solvent.