Sunday, August 15, 2010

Answering questions of polarity

Polarities
Nonpolar
Are there any polar covalent bonds in the molecule?
What makes them polar? – electronegativity difference
Is the molecule symmetrical? – bond polarities cancel out.....regions of electron density are evenly spread.....nonpolar.

Polar
Is the molecule asymmetrical? – bond polarities do not cancel out.....regions of electron density are unevenly spread.....polar.

Example;
BrF3: F is more electronegative than Br / electronegativity of two atoms different therefore the bonds are polar.
The molecule is not symmetrical and this means that the dipole moments do not cancel / polar bonds do not cancel / polarities of the bonds do not cancel / centre of + and – charges do not correspond so the molecule is polar.

SF6: F is more electronegative than S / electronegativity of two atoms different so the bonds are polar.
The symmetry of the molecule is such / molecule is symmetrical so that the dipole moments of bonds cancel / polar bonds
cancel / or polarity of bonds cancel / centre of + and – charges correspond so the molecule is non-polar.

No comments:

Post a Comment