Question

Hydrogen is relatively inert at room temperature due to high HH bond enthalpy.what does this statement mean?explain it in detail.

Answer 1

The bond dissociation enthalpy is the energy needed to break one mole of the bond to give separated atoms - everything being in the gas state.

For covalent bonds, bond energies and bondlengths depend on many factors:

electron afinities,sizes of atoms involved in the bond,differences in their electronegativity,and the overall structure of the molecule.

There is a general trend in that the shorter the bondlength, the higher the bond energy.

Hydrogen has a relatively small atom and short bondlength hence very strong strong attractions between the atoms which will consenquently increase its bond dissociation ethalpy.