Question
Why oxygen has less tendency to catenate than sulphur?
Solution
Oxygen is small in size and the lone pair on oxygen repel the bond pairs of O-O bond to larger extent than the lone pairs on sulphur in S-S bond.
The S-S bond energy 213K/J mol therefore bond strength is more compared to O-O bond energy 138k/J mol. Sulphur naturally exist in nature as S8 molecules. On heating these rings break and link jointly in long to chains. Hence sulphur has great tendency for catenation than oxygen.
