Topic: Intermolecular forces determine vapor pressure.

Objectives: To understand how intermolecular forces affect vapor pressure.

Vapor pressure is the amount of gas in equilibrium with the liquid and solid phases.
The higher the vapor pressure, the more gas in equilibrium, and thus the easier it is for the
substance to vaporize (turn to gas), and vice versa.
*Volatility-Tendency of substance to evaporate at normal temperatures.
Example: Boiling water in a closed container would result to equal exiting evaporazation rate
and entering condensation rate reaching a state of equilibrium. The constant pressure present in
the container is what we call vapor pressure.

Intermolecular forces are the attractive interactions between molecules. For something to
vaporize, you have to get enough energy together to break these interactions. As a result, you'll
need more energy (due to higher temperature) to break apart stronger intermolecular forces.
The common intermolecular forces ordered by strength are:

London Dispersion < Dipole-Dipole < H-"bonding" < Ion-Dipole <Ion Pair

Since higher vapor pressures correspond to more gas in equilibrium, the intermolecular forces
are therefore primarily weaker for higher vapor pressures.

We can draw from this that molecules that are primarily attracted by London dispersion
interactions will have higher vapor pressures than those attracted by dipole-dipole interactions,
which will in turn have higher vapor pressures than those with H-bonding interactions.

In the end, we can make the overall relationship that:

The stronger the intermolecular forces, the stronger the interactions that hold the substance
together, the lower the vapor pressure of a liquid at the given temperature, and the harder it is to
vaporize a substance.