Question 8.10: High oil and gasoline prices have renewed interest in altern...
High oil and gasoline prices have renewed interest in alternative methods of producing energy, including the “clean” burning of coal. Part of what makes “dirty” coal dirty is its high sulfur content. Burning dirty coal produces sulfur dioxide (SO2), among other pollutants. Sulfur dioxide is oxidized in the atmosphere to form sulfur trioxide (SO3), which subsequently combines with water to produce sulfuric acid—a major component of acid rain. Draw all possible resonance structures of sulfur trioxide.
Strategy Draw two or more Lewis structures for SO3 in which the atoms are arranged the same way but the electrons are arranged differently.
Setup Following the steps for drawing Lewis structures, we determine that a correct Lewis structure for SO3 contains two sulfur-oxygen single bonds and one sulfur-oxygen double bond.
But the double bond can be put in any one of three positions in the molecule.
