Confirm that the sp3 hybrid orbitals make angles of 120deg to each other.
The ground state configuration of Carbon has two electrons in the 2s orbital and two electrons in the 2p orbital.
Thus the ground state configuration is 1s2 2s2 2p2 .
When excited, one electron in the 2s level jumps into the 2p level. Then the 2s and 2p orditals form four degenerate hybrid orbitals to form the sp3 hybrid orbitals.
The orditals are of the same energy. Thus, due to bond-bond repulsions they arrange in a tetrahedral geometry. Inthe tetrahedral geometry, the internal angles between each bond is 120degrees as shown below.
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