Question

what is sulfur hexafluoride an example of?

Answer 1

many things... but in general chemistry it is an example of how elements under row 2 can have expanded octets (hence it bonding with 6 fluorine atoms). this is because there are d orbitals.
for example, you woul dnever see carbon hexafluoride because carbon cannot make that many bonds

Answer 2

Amanda is correct, it is an example of a violation of the octet rule

Answer 3

sp3d2 hybridisation....

Answer 4

I've looked into this not long ago, d orbitals are not involved in bonding.

This is excerpt is from -> Frank Weinhold, Clark R. Landis, "Valency and Bonding: A Natural Bond Orbital Donor-Acceptor Perspective" Cambridge University Press, 2005-06-17, pg 275-276.

"Two general concepts of hypervalency have been proposed. The first "d-orbital participation," is represented in practically every general-chemistry textbook, and is based on the assumption that 4-m-l additional d-type AOs are employed to "expand the valence shell" to five, sex or more electron pairs.

1s+3p+(4-m-l)d AOs -> (m+l) hybrids

leading, e.g., to six d^2sp^3 hybrids for m+l=6.

The second, "ionic resonance," is based on the high ionic character of the bonding and the imporance of resonance delocalization that would be represented in VB language as X:^- A-X <-> X-A :X^-

involving ordinary octet-rule conforming species. The VB ionic-resosnce picture is essentially equivalent to the three-center, four-electron (3c/4e) MO model in which non-zero bond orders result form filling both the bonding and the nonbonding MOs arising from the interaction of three AOs.

The ionic-resonance (3c/4e MO) picture implies that d orbitals play onle a secondary role as polarization functions (rather than primary componenets of bonding hybrids) and emphasizes that a single acceptor orbitla on central atom may be adequate to form strong donor-acceptor interactions with m ligand donor orbitals. Thus, no significant "expansion of the valence shell" or other violations of Lewis-structural principles (beyond resonance delocalization may be needed in order to account for the hypervalency phenomenon. This is consistent with considerable theoretical and computational ecidence showing that d orbitals play a relatively negligible role in main-group hypervalency phenomena"