Describe sulfur in its elemental state?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Jan 18, 2018

You mean #"S"_8#? It's the elemental state of sulfur, the orthorhombic allotrope of sulfur.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/

It adopts a so-called "puckered ring", or crown-like structure. It belongs to the #D_(4d)# point group, and is rather tricky to visualize...

https://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/j.p.goss/symmetry/

If you wanted to properly write the formation reaction of #"SO"_2(g)#, you would write...

#1/8"S"_8("ortho") + "O"_2(g) -> "SO"_2(g)#

and not...

#"S"(s) + "O"_2(g) -> "SO"_2(g)#

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