I know Boron and Beryllium are often electron deficient, but are there any other atoms that can be? Is there a trend on the periodic table that shows you where the electron deficient atoms are? Can any atom be electron deficient?
If you're looking at covalent bonding, boron is one that is an octet rule breakerBeryllium also does this, simply because they don't have enough valence electrons to complete an octetI think this is what you mean by electron deficientA periodic trend is in the groups: All the other group 2 elements have the potential to be electron deficient in this way, but they tend to do more ionic bonding, where this isn't a problemGroup 3 elements (boron, aluminum, etc.) also have this potential, since they carry 3 valence electrons In terms of ionic bonding, everything except a noble gas could be considered electron deficient, and this is what drives ionic bonding: the need to have 8 electrons.
