Sixteen Electrons, and Nowhere Else to Put Them

You'll learnhow to build a Lewis structure by spending a fixed pile of electrons down to zero.

One carbon and two oxygens bring sixteen valence electrons to the page, and every one of them has to end up drawn as a bonding pair or a lone pair. Nothing else counts as an answer. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · CO₂ · BUDGET = 16 e⁻ · v4

sixteen electrons in · sixteen electrons drawn · nothing left over

Before you start

What you're looking at

One carbon and two oxygens with nothing drawn yet, beside an empty ledger.

The question

Where does every electron these three atoms brought have to end up?

Step 1 / 12