http://www.ck12.org Chapter 9. Covalent Bonding
FIGURE 9.23
The process of sp^3 hybridization is the mixing of an s orbital with a set of three p orbitals to form a set of four sp^3
hybrid orbitals. Each large lobe of the hybrid orbitals points to one corner of a tetrahedron.The methane and ammonia examples illustrate the connection between orbital hybridization and the VSEPR model.
The electron domain geometry predicted by VSEPR leads directly to the type of hybrid orbitals that must be formed
to accommodate that geometry. Both methane and ammonia have tetrahedral electron domain geometries and thus
both undergo sp^3 hybridization.
Likewise, the bent-shaped water molecule (H 2 O) also involves the formation of sp^3 hybrids on the oxygen atom. In
this case, however, there are two hybrid orbitals which have lone pairs and two which bond to the hydrogen atoms.
Because the electron domain geometry for H 2 O is tetrahedral, the hybridization is sp^3.