Saturday, August 13, 2011

I am confused, please help!?

The definition of polar is that electrons are not being shared equally. That happens when the two atoms have different electronegativities. When there is an electronegativity difference of less than .5, it is considered a nonpolar bond because it is such a small difference, that we consider it as if they are sharing the electrons equally. When the difference in electronegativity is more than 1.7, we consider the bond to be ionic, which means that we consider it as if they are not sharing electrons at all and that the higher electronegative atom takes all the electrons. So in truth, there really isn't much of a difference between a very polar bond and a not so ionic bond. Because of this, nonmetals and metals will usually form ionic bonds due to their huge difference in electronegativity. But if you have a metal that is not so low in electronegatvity, it is possible for it to form a polar bond with a nonmetal. I hope this helped you. Good luck!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment