What are secrets of the bent water molecule?
1) One secret would be: why is the water molecule bent? “The oxygen has 6 valence electrons and thus needs 2 more electrons from 2 hydrogen atoms to complete its octet. This then leaves two lone electron pairs that are not bonded to any other atoms. The two hydrogen atoms and the two lone electron pairs are as far apart as possible at nearly 109obond angle. This is tetrahedral electron pair geometry. The 2 lone electron pairs exerts a little extra repulsion on the two bonding hydrogen atoms to create a slight compression to a 104obond angle. The water molecule is bent molecular geometry because the lone electron pairs, although still exerting influence on the shape, are invisible when looking at molecular geometry. The molecule is two dimensional and bent as opposed to the beryllium hydride case which was a linear or straight line molecular geometry because it did not have a lone electron pair.” Source and further information: http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/206bent.html Further
