Formation of Water Molecule

O atom: has six valence

electrons and so an unfilled
H atoms: each atom has
valence shell.
one valence electron and
so an unfilled valence shell.

H2O molecule: sharing of

electrons means each atom
has a filled valence shell.

As we bring the atoms together, the electron on each hydrogen atom combines
with an electron on the oxygen atom of opposite spin to occupy a region of space
between the two nuclei.
OT  TH
HT  TO O OH
HOO
Q Q
The result is an H2O molecule in which each hydrogen atom shares a pair of elec-
trons with the oxygen atom and the oxygen atom has access to an octet of valence
electrons.
The Lewis structure of water is often written with a line representing each
pair of electrons that is shared by two atoms.

O OH
HOO
Q
There are four regions in space, or domains, where electrons can be found around
the oxygen atom in the water molecule. Two of these domains are called bonding
domains because they hold the pairs of electrons used for bonding. The other two
domains contain pairs of electrons that are described as nonbonding electrons.
These domains are called nonbonding domains. The nonbonding electrons are
in the valence shell of oxygen and are considered to belong exclusively to the
oxygen atom in the molecule. Thus there are eight total electrons in the non-
bonding and bonding domains of oxygen, and there are two electrons in the bond-
ing domain of each hydrogen atom.