- sp^3 Hybrid Orbitals
Methane, CH 4 , can be used to illustrate this hybridization. Carbon
has a ground state of 1s^22 s^22 p^2. One 2s electron is excited to a 2p
orbital, and the four involved orbitals then form four new identical
sp^3 orbitals.In some compounds where only certain sp^3 orbitals are
involved in bonding, distortion in the bond angle occurs because