In chemistry, a lone pair is a valence electron pair without bonding or sharing with other atoms. They are found in the outermost electron shell of an atom, so lone pairs are a subset of a molecule's valence electrons. They can be identified by examining the outermost energy level of an atom—lone electron pairs consist of paired electrons as opposed to single electrons, which may appear if the atomic orbital is not full. Electron pairs are therefore considered lone pairs if two electrons are paired but are not used in chemical bonding. Thus, the number of lone electrons plus the number of bonding electrons equal the total number of valence electrons in a compound.
Read more about Lone Pair: Examples, Angle Changes, Unusual Lone Pairs
Famous quotes containing the words lone and/or pair:
“As a lone ant from a broken ant-hill
from the wreckage of Europe, ego scriptor.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“... the Ovarian Theory of Literature, or, rather, its complement, the Testicular Theory. A recent camp follower ... of this explicit theory is ... Norman Mailer, who has attributed his own gift, and the literary gift in general, solely and directly to the possession of a specific pair of organs. One writes with these organs, Mailer has said ... and I have always wondered with what shade of ink he manages to do it.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)