Question

What is the difference between the octet rule and the duet rule?

Answer 1

There are two rules for the elements in the periodic table to explain the stability of the atoms with respect to the presence of the number of electrons in the valence orbitals. Those two rules are octet rule and duet rule.

Complete answer:
- In the question it is asked to write the difference between the octet rule and duet rule.
- The octet rule says that any element in the periodic table contains 8 electrons in the valence shell then those elements have higher stability than the remaining elements which don’t have eight electrons in their valence shell.
- Coming to the concept of duet rule, which is going to be applicable for the first four elements of the periodic table.
- The duet rule says that the elements which are having completely filled ‘s’ orbital are more stable.
- For example by accepting one electron, the hydrogen atom will get fully filled s-orbital and the elements lithium, beryllium and boron will get completed s-orbital by losing one, two and three electrons respectively.
- Octet rule is going to be applicable for all the elements in the periodic table and duet rule is going to be applicable for the first four elements in the periodic table only.

Note:
The non-metals in the periodic table will try to take the electrons from the metals to get the stability by following the octet rule and the metals will lose the electrons to get the octet rule. By accepting electrons nonmetals will get negative charge and by losing electrons metals will get positive charge.