Electron Affinity and Electronegativity

[Michael Iter 2F]

Hi I'm still confused over the difference between electron affinity and electronegativity. Do they effectively go hand in hand?

[AdilaAhmed3I]

Hi I'm still confused over the difference between electron affinity and electronegativity. Do they effectively go hand in hand?

The electron affinity of an atom or molecule is defined as the amount of energy released when an electron is added to a neutral atom or molecule in the gaseous state to form a negative ion.
Electronegativity is a chemical property that says how well an atom can attract electrons towards itself.

[Xinyu Li 1C]

Electronegativity: how well an atom can attract electrons toward itself

Electron affinity: amount of energy released when an electron is added to a molecule or atom

[Andre Fabian 1F]

Hi I'm still confused over the difference between electron affinity and electronegativity. Do they effectively go hand in hand?

Electron affinity is the amount of energy released after an atom or molecule gains an electron, and electronegativity is the ability of an atom to attract an electron.


Hope this helps!
Andre

[LeanneBagood_2F]

this might be a dumb question but i'm blanking: how do we determine electronegativity? is there something we'd look at on the periodic table or something like that?

[Marc Lubman 3B]

this might be a dumb question but i'm blanking: how do we determine electronegativity? is there something we'd look at on the periodic table or something like that?

Electronegativity could be generally determined a couple ways if you're not just relying on the periodic trend of it increasing as you go up diagonally right across the periodic table.
One way would be to observe the properties of the element in chemical reactions. We might, for example, be able to tell that one element is more electronegative than another if it displaces that other element to bind to a super electropositive atom.
Another would be to postulate based on the electron arrangement of the atom. If an element is only one or two gained electrons away from a stable 8-electron shell or another stable arrangement, it will be predictably electronegative, and if an element only needs to lose one excess, annoying electron in order to have that comfy arrangement, it'll be quite electropositive.

[Karina Grover 1A]

Electronegativity indicates how well an atom can attract electrons to itself, whereas electron affinity is the quantitative amount of energy released when an electron is gained by an atom. When a more stable element gains an electron, it will absorb energy because the addition of an electron to this more stable atom is unfavorable. However, when a less stable element gains an electron, it will release energy.

[Gustavo_Chavez_1K]

Electron affinity basically measures the energy change when a neutral atom attracts an electron to become a negative ion. Electronegativity measures the ability of an atom to attract bonding electrons to itself. One thing to keep in mind though is that both electronegativity and electron affinity increase as we go up and to the right of the periodic table.

[David Liu 1E]

Hi this is probably another dumb question but why does electron affinity increase as we go up and to the right? I understand how electronegativity goes up but not affinity

[Armen_Isayan_2L]

Hello Michael! The difference between electronegativity and electron affinity is that electronegativity defines how likely an atom is to attract a shared pair of electrons. On the other hand, electron affinity is the change which occurs in energy when an electron is added to a gaseous atom.