Question

If the electronegativity difference between two bonded atoms in a molecule is greater than 1.7, the nature of bonding is ______.

Answer 1

Answer:

Why are bonds ionic when the electronegativity difference between bonded atoms is greater than 1.7?

Ask Question

Asked 6 years, 5 months ago

Active 3 years ago

Viewed 78k times

11

1

I'm learning about how to recognise whether a bond is ionic or covalent, based on the difference in electronegativity between the two bonding partners, Δχ.

What I have now is a formula:

If Δχ=0, then the bond is nonpolar

If 0<Δχ≤1.7, then the bond is polar covalent

If Δχ>1.7, then the bond is ionic

But I don't know how scientists determined that formula, the history of it and which experiment indicates that formula.

bond electronegativity polarity

share  improve this question  follow  

edited Aug 12 '17 at 1:08

orthocresol♦

53.5k99 gold badges167167 silver badges305305 bronze badges

asked Mar 15 '14 at 4:39

LeDuc

67933 gold badges88 silver badges1616 bronze badges

3

I dont really think it has much meaning as you think, this value is given for intro chem courses so you don't have to go very deep into how bonds actually work. Real chemical behavior isn't so binary. (Maybe 1.7 has SOME significance though) – rch Mar 15 '14 at 5:19

2

Ionic and covalent lie on a continuous spectrum, and no "ionic" compound will have 100% ionic character. – user3932000 Dec 27 '16 at 14:54

add a comment

1 Answer

Active

Oldest

Votes

18

The first thing to consider is the difference between covalent and ionic bonding, from the UCDavis ChemWiki site Ionic and Covalent Bonds,

In ionic bonding, atoms transfer electrons to each other. Ionic bonds require at least one electron donor and one electron acceptor. In contrast, atoms that have the same electronegativity share electrons in covalent bonds since donating or receiving electrons is unfavorable.

The electron donor has a low electronegativity and the electron acceptor has a higher elelctronegativity - so there is a difference in electronegativity ΔEN, effectively creating a positive and negative end, an example is below:

enter image description here

Image source: Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI)

When the differences in electronegativities of various compounds are graphed against % ionic character, as shown below:

enter image description here Image source: University of Florida Chemical Bonding page

Values of ΔEN greater than 1.7 correspond to an ionic character of greater than 50%, from the University of Florida website:

What determines how the electrons are shared is the relative electronegativity (electron greed) of the bonding atoms. The degree of polarity or degree of ionic bonding of any given bond can vary continuosly zero to nearly 100%. We normally say that bonds between atoms with electronegativity difference (ΔEN) greater than 1.7 are ionic, although this really means only more than about half ionic in character

Explanation: