HS vs HO

[Elyssa Smith 4B]

Is HS more tightly bound or is HO? why?

[Jessica Castellanos]

If you mean covalent radius as tightly bound, HO because O is much smaller than S.

[Cynthia Gong 1L]

The intramolecular bond between HO would be stronger than the intramolecular bond between HS because of the stronger effective nuclear charge present in the nucleus of O. As a result, HO is more tightly bound.

[Brooke Yasuda 2J]

when they ask about which is more tightly bound look at the bond length. And to do this, look at the size of the atoms, so S and O. Because O is smaller than S, its bond length is shorter which means that it is stronger and more tightly bound.

[Esha Chawla 2E]

Is HS more tightly bound or is HO? why?

The first thing I would do when determining if a molecule is more/less tightly bound is by seeing what type of bond is present between the atoms - i.e. is there a single, double, triple bond. In this case, both molecules have single bonds.

In this situation, to determine which molecule is more tightly bound, look at the radius of the Oxygen and Sulfur atoms. Since the oxygen atom is smaller in size than the smaller atom, the Hydrogen atom can get closer to the oxygen atom. Thus, HO is stronger because the atoms are closer together.