Polar Covalent Bonds;

Acids and Bases

Dian Handayani
Polar Covalent Bonds:
Electronegativity
• Bond polarity is due to differences in electronegativity (EN), the intrinsic
ability of an atom to attract the shared electrons in a covalent bond
• As a rough guide, bonds between atoms whose electronegativities differ
by less than 0.5 are nonpolar covalent,
• bonds between atoms whose electronegativities differ by 0.5 to 2 are
polar covalent,
• bonds between atoms whose electronegativities differ by more than 2
are largely ionic.
• Carbon– hydrogen bonds, for example, are relatively nonpolar because
carbon (EN = 2.5) and hydrogen (EN = 2.1) have similar
electronegativities.
• Bonds between carbon and more electronegative elements such as
oxygen (EN = 3.5) and nitrogen (EN 5 3.0), by contrast, are polarized
so that the bonding electrons are drawn away from carbon toward the
electronegative atom.
• Just as individual bonds are often polar, molecules as a whole are often polar as well.
• Molecular polarity results from the vector summation of all individual bond polarities
and lone-pair contributions in the molecule.
• As a practical matter, strongly polar substances are often soluble in polar solvents like
water, whereas less polar substances are insoluble in water.
• Net molecular polarity is measured by a quantity called the dipole moment and can be
thought of in the following way: assume that there is a center of mass of all positive
charges (nuclei) in a molecule and a center of mass of all negative charges (electrons).
• If these two centers don’t coincide, then the molecule has a net polarity.