electronegativity (3.2)

Question 1

what does it mean when you’re asked to find the electronegativity of atoms in a molecule?

Answer 1

it means to figure out the atom in the molecule’s ability to attract shared electrons to itself

Question 2

if two identical atoms have an electronegativity difference of 0 or have the same electronegativities, what happens to the electrons?

what kind of bond is this?

Answer 2

having an electronegativity difference of 0 or the same electronegativities means the atoms are the same, so the electrons in the bond are evenly/equally shared/split.

this is indicative of a covalent bond.

Question 3

if two different atoms have a high electronegativity difference or have different electronegativities, what happens to the electrons?

what kind of bond is this? (answer is contained with the first question)

Answer 3

having a high electronegativity difference or different electronegativities means the atoms are at an imbalance, so the electrons in the bond are going to transfer between atoms to form an ionic bond.

Question 4

does electronegativity increase or decrease as you go across the periods on the periodic table?

Answer 4

it increases!

Question 5

does electronegativity increase or decrease as you go down the groups on the periodic table?

Answer 5

it decrease!

Question 6

if one of the atoms in a molecule has a greater electronegativity, what happens to the shared electrons in the molecule?

Answer 6

the shared atoms will be closer to the atoms with the greatest electronegativity.

Question 7

the greater the difference in electronegativity, the _____________ the chance that electrons will be shared evenly

Answer 7

less

Question 8

the lesser the difference in electronegativity, the _____________ the chance that electrons will be shared evenly

Answer 8

greater

Question 9

do atoms with different electronegativities or a high electronegativity difference tend to be polar bonds or non-polar bonds?

Answer 9

polar because the greater the difference in electronegativity, the greater chance that electrons will not be split evenly, but instead transferred to form an ionic bonds

Question 10

do atoms with similar/same electronegativities or a low electronegativity difference tend to be polar bonds or non-polar bonds?

Answer 10

non-polar because similar/same electronegativity implies symmetry in the atoms (since they’re identical) this means that atoms will be shared evenly and no polarity will exist.

Question 11

as the difference in electronegativity increases, what happens to the polarity of the bond?

Answer 11

it also increases.

Question 12

as the difference in electronegativity decreases, what happens to the polarity of the bond?

Answer 12

it also decreases.