Covalent electron-pair bond and octet rule (Lewis)
Enlace covalente por par de electrones y regla del octeto
- Date
- 1916 · confidence high
- Place
- University of California, Berkeley, United States
- Credited to
- Gilbert N. Lewis (with Walther Kossel for the ionic bond, and Irving Langmuir)
- People
- 👤 Gilbert N. Lewis1875–1946
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Atoms bond by sharing pairs of electrons until they complete eight in their outer shell, while ionic bonding forms by electron transfer (Kossel, 1916). Lewis structures remain the basic language of bonding.
Langmuir popularised and extended the theory in 1919, and Lewis resented the 'Lewis-Langmuir' attribution.
What it led to
- Valence bond theory
- Lewis acids and bases
- Quantum chemistry of bonding
Built on
- Cubical atom1902
- Bohr model of the atom1913
- Noble gas compounds (Bartlett)1962
- electron (Thomson, 1897)