Question #55d1c

When sulfur is by itself, then yes, it desires two electrons to gain a full octet. But this is not the same context as diphenyl sulfone. In this context, you have the two oxygens gunning for the same electrons.

Diphenyl sulfone is:

Not only do both oxygens have an electronegativity of #3.5# vs. sulfur's #2.5#, but there are two on the same sulfur. To justify why this can happen, we can just examine the electron affinity of sulfur vs. oxygen:

#EA_S = 200 (kJ)/(mol)#
#EA_O = 141 (kJ)/(mol)#

From this, it makes sense that oxygen more greatly desires the electrons that sulfur has than sulfur itself wants to keep them (oxygen has to give up less energy than sulfur to gain one electron, hence it is easier for the former to occur than the latter). The sulfur center of the molecule is therefore electrophilic, which I also recall from Organic Chemistry.

Since #SO_2# is as follows:

with one lone pair of electrons, it's sensible that sulfur owns 6 electrons in diphenyl sulfone, even if you consider exceptions to the octet rule. (Sulfur can exceed an octet, like in #SF_6#, but it's not occurring here.)