13.10 Why is benzene extra ordinarily stable though it contains three double bonds?
Benzene is a hybrid of various resonating structure.
Each carbon of benzene is in hybridisation. Two
hybrid orbitals of each carbon is overlapping with adjacent carbon atoms orbital resulting in six C-C sigma bonds all are in a hexagonal plane and remaining
orbital overlap with s-orbitals of hydrogen and form C-H sigma bonds. In benzene six C-H sigma bond presents. And the remaining unhybridised
-orbital (which are perpendicular to the plane), they formed
-bond by lateral overlapping. The possibility of forming
-bond is six (
).
There are 6- electron, which delocalised and moves freely about the six carbon nuclei and the presence of these delocalised
-electrons in benzene makes it more stable