how do you work out if soemthing has a vacant orbital for dative bonding

is there a method i can use to find whether something has a vacant orbital ?

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is there a method i can use to find whether something has a vacant orbital ?

If you are doing A level/equivalent, for simple covalent compounds, dot-and-cross diagrams are the way to go. If an atom in a covalent substance has less than 8 outer electrons, it must have a vacant orbital (or a half-filled orbital if the number of electrons in the outer shell is odd). You can also try drawing electron-in-box diagrams if you are dealing with transition metal cations.

Beyond A level, you need to be aware that if a p-block element is in periods 3 - 7, it will have vacant d-orbitals that may involve themselves in the chemistry of the element in question.